Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

IS nitrate of soda, the saltpetre of commerce, a national blessing or a national curse?

After the war with Peru and Bolivia, by which Chile added to her territory 1,200 miles of seacoast, including the Bolivian Province of Antofagasta and the Peruvian Province of Tarapacá, a Chilean naval commander was credited with the foreboding prophecy that the nitrates would ruin Chile as they had ruined Peru.

In its political phase the question may be answered according to the bias of the individual. It enters into the subjects concerning which Chileans engage in heated controversies when discussing policies and tendencies, or criticising government expenditures. But this aspect has no direct bearing on the naked economic facts of production and the addition to the nutritious substances of the world’s soil.

Nitrates are among the most extensively used fertilizers known to agriculture, and the demand for them grows. Their relation to the fiscal system of Chile may be understood when it is known that from 85 to 87 per cent of the total revenues is derived from the export tax on the saltpetre products. This impost is, in terms of English currency, at the rate of 28 pence per 46 kilograms or Spanish quintal of 101.4 pounds, relatively 55 cents for each 100 pounds. Their ratio of contribution to the national wealth is shown by an analysis for a given year, when the total value of the exports was $73,786,000 gold, of which $53,565,000 was nitrates and the by-product of iodine, while the balance of $20,221,000 was composed of mineral and agricultural products and manufactured articles. In Chilean currency the figures were $202,153,000, of which the nitrates constituted $146,756,000. In the last quarter of a century the nitrate beds have yielded to the Chilean government $273,000,000 gold, and it is estimated that during the next twenty-five years, on the basis of the present export tax, the revenue will amount to $436,000,000.

The first exportations were made in 1832. They continued on a small scale until the war in which Peru lost the Province of Tarapacá, and their exploitation on a large scale may be said to have begun in 1882 under the Chilean administration. In that year the exportations amounted to 10,701,000 Spanish quintals. In the period inclusive from 1832 to 1904 the total reached the enormous sum of 602,438,000 quintals, or 61,087,213,200 pounds, equal to 27,271,077 long tons of 2,240 pounds. The personal histories of the individuals who engaged in the exploitation of the saltpetre deposits are as romantic as the experiences of the bonanza mining-kings. Nitrate kings have risen and thriven and have held their courts with titled courtiers in their train. Colossal fortunes have been made and plain commoners have become peers of England treading the golden path which was paved with saltpetre.

So little is known about the nitrate industry that I venture to repeat the substance of a description which I found at once entertaining and instructive.[11]

11 For the facts here given I am indebted, through the courtesy of Minister Walker Martinez, to Mr. J. J. Campana, of Iquique; but the opinions are my own.

The saltpetre or nitrate zone embraces the extension comprehended between the Camarones in south latitude 19° 11′ on the north and parallel 27° to the port of Caldera on the south, 450 miles in length. The distance which separates it from the coast varies. In the northern part the sea is only 15 miles away; in the South it is 93 miles distant.

The deposits of saltpetre situated in the Province of Tarapacá occupy the small folds and the gently rising hills which extend from the west of the pampas of Tamarugal. To the south of the Loa River these deposits follow no lode, and they are met with in the midst of the great pampas as well as in the folds of some hills. But they extend always in a zone which runs to a distance varying from 37 to 93 miles from the coast. The short space that separates them from the sea makes easy the access to the neighboring ports by means of the railroads through the ravines which traverse the Cordillera of the coast.

The saltpetre is found mixed with other substances and forming an irregular layer, frequently broken up into barren parts, in which generally common salt dominates, or simply a conglomeration of clay, gravel, and sulphate of soda.