| Pescadores | 11.48.0 | 77.15.30 | 200 | +-----------------------+------------+------------+------------+ I have not visited all these small deposits, and have been content to take the report of Captain Black, the chief of the Peruvian expedition lately appointed to examine them. I have found him so faithful and trustworthy in those cases--the more important of them all--where I have had the opportunity of comparing his calculations with my own, that I have not hesitated to adopt his estimates of the least important deposits. I have considered them of value if for no other reason than to guard the public against any fresh discovery being made by interested parties. If then we add these northern deposits to those of the south, Peru has at present in her possession, in round numbers, 7,500,000 tons of guano of 2240 lbs. to the ton. It is not my business to suggest the possible existence of guano remaining to be discovered. I may however be allowed to say that there are certain unmistakable indications of even large deposits which may lie buried a hundred feet below the sand on the slopes of the southern shore. As those indications are the result of my own observation, I may be allowed to keep them to myself for a more convenient season. FOOTNOTES: [3] Since writing the above I have come on the following passage from the report of the Peruvian Minister of Finance for 1858. 'HUANO Tan grande es el valor de este ramo de la riqueza nacional, que sin exajeracion puede asegurarse, que en su estimacion y buen manejo estriba la subsistencia del Estado, el mantenimiento de su credito, el porvenir de su engrandecimiento, y la conservacion del órden publico.' Which may be done into the vulgar tongue faithfully and well as follows--So great is the value of this branch of the national riches, that without exaggeration it may be affirmed that on its estimation and good handling depend the subsistence of the State, the maintenance of its credit, the future of its increase, and the preservation of public order.--Signed, Manuel Ortiz de Zerallos. [4] It is hard to believe that the present dead silent sands, which form the coast of Peru from the Province of Chincha in the south as far as Trujillo in the north, was in the early days so populous that Padre Melendez, quoted by Unanue, compared one of the small valleys to an ant hill; and now 'not more than half a dozen natives can be found among its ruins.'--See Documentos Literarios del Peru Colectados por Manuel de Odriozola, vol. vi, p. 179.