Navigational Track chart for the German Nitrate Barque <i>Potosi</i>, 1914
date: label: date made
content: 1914
notes: label: Description
content: By the mid-1870s, the Pacific guano trade had mined all the available bird guano from the South American and remote Pacific Ocean islands. Fortunately for international agricultural interests, nitrate and phosphate mines had recently been discovered inland in Peru and Chile to fill the gap, and big sailing ships from Europe and the United States exchanged the avian excrement for chemicals that could be mined and blended for synthetic fertilizers and other products.
label: Description
content: This track chart measured daily progress for the five-masted German barque <i>Potosi</i> on a nitrate voyage from Hamburg, Germany to Valparaiso, Chile in 1914. The ship was built at Geestemunde, Germany in 1895 for the Flying P Line and measured 366.3 ft. in length and 4,026 tons. <i>Potosi</i> cleared Hamburg on 4 July 1914, rounded Cape Horn and arrived at Valparaiso, Chile 81 days later on 23 September.
label: Description
content: It was <i>Potosi's</i> last voyage under the German flag before the ship was interned at Valparaiso for the duration of World War I. The ship's captain used the time to train in Chilean navigation and obtained a Chilean Master's license. In April 1917 he received direct orders to prevent the ship from being used by the enemy, so he destroyed its steering gear as well as the standing and running rigging. After the war, new owners used <i>Potosi</i> in the coasting trade, but in 1925 the ship caught fire off the Argentine coast and was deliberately sunk.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Maritime
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content: Transportation
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content: Measuring & Mapping
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Capt. J. Ferrell Colton
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1999.3004.11
label: catalog number
content: 1999.3004.11
label: nonaccession number
content: 1999.3004
objectType: label: Object Name
content: chart
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: cardboard (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 23 1/4 in x 15 in x 3/16 in; 59.055 cm x 38.1 cm x .47625 cm