91

INSPECTION OF PERUVIAN AND OTHER GUANOS.

I have in all my previous reports spoken of the necessity of a
rigid inspection of this article, and although the Legislature has
conceded this point in using the very language of my reports, and
copied from them the preamble of the Bill for this purpose,
yet that Bill in its provisions does not carry out the principles of
an inspection capable of showing the true nature of the article
inspected. Take one of its provisions as an example, which is
that Peruvian guano capable of affording from 15 to 18 per cent,
of ammonia shall be marked with the same mark, the letter A.
Now we all know that the ammoniacal compounds in Peruvian
guano are those which give it its distinctive value. The differ-
ence in the value of this guano then, which contains 15 pounds
or 18 pounds of these compounds in the hundred pounds, is about

17  per cent, so that Peruvian guano at its present wholesale price
of fifty-five dollars per ton, having the same mark, may have actu-
ally a difference in its value of nine dollars thirty cents per ton, the

18 per cent, of it being worth fifty-five dollars per ton, the fifteen
per cent, is only worth $46 65 per ton or 17 per cent. less. The
importance of the difference is much greater in other guanos.

There should be marked on each bag the name of the ship and
the merchant be required to keep a certified analysis of its
cargo.

With a few words for the truth of history on this subject and I
am done. In a report to the Senate at January Session, 1854, in
answer to a call of that body, the present Inspector (Dr. Wm. S.
Reese) states that the present law was drawn up with great care
by Dr. Washington Finley, of Queen Ann's county. This is
an error, the same bill almost word for word was presented to the
House of Delegates several years before, and was drawn up by
Joseph Weathers, then chairman of committee on inspections,
and revised by Hon. Otho Scott, and though it is true that the
present bill as it stands did pass both houses unanimously, its
friends only at first defeated the Senate "bill for the regulation
of the inspection of guano" by four votes in the House of Dele-
gates. This bill had passed the Senate by a vote of eighteen to
two. It provided for an accurate inspection, the inspector to give
$15,000 bond for faithful performance of duty, and required the
State chemist to be the inspector, or responsible for its faithful
performance. It was defeated in the House by the want of four
votes. It could have been passed there had I, the State Chemist,
acceded to a proposition giving the power of appointment of ray
assistant to a particular individual who made the proposition to
me. This for obvious reasons I declined doing, and being op-
posed by strong outside influence and supported by none, the bill