The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-08-14

II Costs and the Profits-A visit
of the Deposits.
Copyrighted. 1885, by Frank G. Carpenter.
IQUIQUE, Chile, July 19-For the
past three weeks I have been travel
Ing through a vast chemical laboratory
of the gods l have ridden over miles
of plains covered with salt, have WIS.,
tied lakes of the whitest boraX, have
wound in and out among mountains
rich in tin. copper and silver, and now
write almost in the midst of the vast
nitrate fields of Chile like unto which
there is nothing on the face of the
earth
Leaving the silver mining town of
Oruro. Bolivia. l came down the noun
tains on the little narrow gauge which
connects that town with the seaport
of -Antofagasta. The distance is 600
miles, or about as great as that be-
tween New York and Cleveland. The
track is only two feet six inches wide,
and the road is. 1 believe, the longest
one of this gauge in the world. The
cars are of the American STYLE having
been built in Massachusetts. The seats
on one side of the car are not wider
than a kitchen chair, and on the other,
where they are supposed to hold two,
not more than thirty inches. 1t was,
in fact, more like riding in a toy car
than on the through trunk line which
forms the only rail connection between
two great countries. Still the road is
smooth and well laid. It's ties are of
Oregon pine. and the stations upon it
are, as a rule, built of corrugated iron
from Europe. The fares are exceedingly
high. 1 pSid fifty-one silver dollars
for my ticket, and in addition $50 extra
baggage, as nothing whatever is al
lowed free. My meals at the dining
stations each cost me $3.50 in silver,
and when I stopped al night, as 1 was
forced to do twice on the road, the hotel
rates were 81 per day. The chief pur-
pose of the road is to carry the silver
and other metals to the seacoast. The
most of the cars of our train were
loaded with little chunks of tin on it's
way to the Pacific.
SALT PLAINS OF BOLIVIA.
It was a ride through a desert.
Shortly after leaving Oruro we enter
ed the salt plains of Bolivia. These
are Of vast extent, lining the road for
hundreds of miles. In fact there are
but few places between Oruro and the
sea where the ground is not more or
less mixed with salt, and in some dis
tricts 1t covers the land like a sheet
OF dirty white snow Along some parts
of the line it looks hard and icy, and
you feel like jumping off the cars for
skate. At others it lies in gullies and
again it only sprinkles the ground, and
q ragged growth of scrubby vegetation
struggles up through it. The road runs
Tor nearly the whole of it's length
through desert valley, and this salt
reaches away on each side of the hills.
Here and there along the road are
lakes upon which seem to be floating
great cakes Of ice. The cakes are not
ice, however.
They are boraX, and in the great
borax lake of Ascotan, Bolivia, there
Is enough boraX to wash the heads Of
eli humanity. This lake has, it Is esti-
mated, more than 100000 tons of pure
borax ready to be shipped to the mar
kets of the world. l saw it on my left
as l rode over the railroad on the way
to the coast. 1t is about six miles
square, and the borax in it lies in great
masses, WHICH when taken out look for
all the world like the finest of pure
white spun silk wadded up or woven
into Jumps. The stuff is borate of lime,
ana Is not so good, l am told as the
boraX that comes from similar lakes
In California. Still 1t is Of considerable
value, for the lake has just been sold
to syndicate of Germans for 80 900
pounds sterling.
DESERT PAVED WITH GOLD.
This lake, however, is not a drop in
the ocean compared with the enormous
value of the nitrate fields through
which 1 crossed as I neared the Pa
cific. These fields extend north and
south through this part of Chile for
distance of more than 300 miles, and
their product is so valuable that they
almost pave the desert of Chile with
gold. They have produced millions
upon millions of tons of nitrate of soda,
and it is estimated that more than
100000 tons Of nitrate will be shipped
from them this year. The value of
these nitrate deposits runs high into
the millions of dollars. When they
were in the hands Of the Peruvians
they were rich, and now that they be-
long to Chile as a result Of her war
with Peru she gets more than half her
revenue from the export duty which
she collects from them. The working
of the fields is in the hands of for
eigners, and more than 500, 1000, 900
worth of English capital is invested In
the great ofcinas or factories by
means of which the nitrate is taken
from the earth and prepared for the
markets of the world. Vast fortunes
have been made out of these nitrate
fields. I met in England some years
king, and visited him at his magnificent
country place at Ethan, near London.
He lived here like q prince and was
at the time fairly rolling in wealth. All
of his money was made in this region,
and the champagne which We had at
dinner, though its taste showed no evil
dence of the fact, was efferVescent with
nitrate of soda. The nitrate which the
United States imported from this Iqui-
que district alone in 1897 cost more than
three million gold dollars and the
amount was more than 234 900, 900
pounds. The greater part of this has
gone into the making of powder and
high explosives, and much of it has al
ready been used in the war with Spain.
Another part of it has been sold as
fertilizers, and is now enriching the
soil of American farms 1t is as a
fertilizer that the chief demand for the
nitrate comes, the bulk of the product
going to Germany, where it is used
In the growing Of the sugar beet Just
now, however, the nitrate business Is
not as prosperous as it has been. A
number of the factories are idle. and
the n arkets are overstocked
IN THE NITRATE FIELDS.
My first view of the nitrate fields was
on the railroad going to Antofagasta.
The deposits in that part of Chile. how
ever, are not so good as those further
north, and 1 have taken ship and come
to Iquique, which is the chief shipping
port of the best nitrate fields of the
world. 1 have travelled from here to
some of the richest fields and have
spent q day at the great nitrate oficina
of the Aqua Santa company, which has