The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-04-23 00:00:00

GUANO.-THE ISLAND OF ICHABOE.

It appears from an interesting article in the Glasgow
Herald, that it was through the information of the master
of an American whaler, at the Cape of Good Hope, given
to Captain Farr, an nglishman, that the first cargo of
guano was brought to this country, from Ichaboe, by the
latter, who has since made a second voyage to the island,
and pointed out the way to other ships, in accordance
with a negociation entered into with their owners. The
writer in the Herald thus concludes :
" At the time of Captain Farr's first visit, the island
was covered with penguins, gannets, &c., but principally
the former, in numbers which altogether defied calcula-
tion. They seemed to have no acquaintance with, nor
fear of, man, and, in fact, offered a resistance to his en-
croachment on a domain which had been peculiarly their
own for thousands of years. Since the crews of so many
ships, however, were located at the island, the birds have
almost entirely deserted their former territory, and re-
tired to fulfil the purposes of their nature in more remote
and inaccessible shores. The specimens of the penguin
from Ichaboe which we have seen are about two feet in
height, and as a great portion of their time is spent in the
sea, they are furnished with small flaps or paddles, instead
of wings, which enable them to progress through the water
with great velocity, though they are unable to fly. The
female lays and sits upon one egg at a time, and a hole
scratched in the deposit subserves all the purposes of a
nest. In this way a succession of incubations go on for
several months in the year, the young bird making its way
to the sea as soon as it is able. It is the opinion of the
seamen, however, that vast numbers of them never reach
their destined home in the waters, but are crushed to
death in their progress to it, by the dense battalions of
birds which have almost to maintain a struggle for bare
standing room • and in this way the guano heaps are in-
creased as well by the bodies of the birds as by their
droppings. The bodies of seals are also found on the
surface of the guano deposits, which leads to the belief
that they may have occasionally taken shelter there from
a storm or hurricane, and having been overpowered by
the potency of the ammoniacal vapour, have been unable
to return to the water, and died where they lay. The
guano which is brought to this country is found under a
loose covering of decayed birds, recent dung, &c., and it
is so firmly imbedded that it requires to be dug out by
the laborious operations of the pick-axe. When thus dis-
engaged it is put into bags, and transferred, by means of
a sort of rope ladder, from the island to a boat, which lies
at the outer edge of the surf, and from thence it is daily
emptied into the hold of the vessel, which is anchored at
a short distance. Ten men will lift about 15 tons per day,
but the operation is a very laborious one, and the sun is
so powerful that few of the crews escape without having
their faces and hands blistered so that the outer skin is
peeled off. The trip to or from the island extends to from
55 to 70 days, or, including the time necessary to take in
a cargo, the voyage out and home extends to from six to
seven months. When Captain Farr left Ichaboe he esti-
mated the guano deposit on that island alone to extend to
1000 feet in length, by 500 in breadth, with an average
depth of 35 feet, containing, perhaps, from 700,000 to
800,000 tons. It is evident, therefore, that this supply
will soon be exhausted in fertilising the soil of Great Bri-
train end her dependencies ' • but it is to be hoped that vast
Astdorveesrioisfeii.t, yet exist, which have hitherto never been dis-
turbed by man. On this subject we quote the following
cheering statement from the South African Commercial
rocky
published
headlands, at C aopre Townon th e inJanuaryrocky and lastu na,:z
r
`On the ock
lested islands on the west coast, both within and beyond
the boundary of this colony, where the sea-fowl, from a
vast expanse of open ocean, come to breed, enormous
masses of this manure have recently been discovered ;
and it seems probable that all the way up the coast into
the Gulf of Guinea, and beyond it, simiar treasures await
the agriculture of the world, by which means the sea will
render back to the land much more matter fitted to form
noargtiaonnisseddeo
organised, that
i
s, vegetcaobulersaenodnarniimtsaslusrufabcset.ances, than
the rivers carry down into its depths, or the fleets of the
in their

FATHER MATHEW GOING ACROSS THE
WATER.—
The American papers state that Father Mathew. having
been offered a free passage to the United States, is about
to proceed thither on a temperance mission in June.