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The Peruvian ''guano'' (''huano''), that precious fertilizer, composed of the excrement of sea-fowl, intermixed with their decaying bodies, eggs, remains of seal, and so on, which has accumulated upon the isles of the Pacific and the coast of South America, and its formation are now well known. It was Humboldt who first discovered and drew the world’s attention to it in 1804. And, while describing the deposits as covering the granite rocks of the Chinchas and other islands to the depth of 50 or 60 feet, he states ''that the accumulation of the preceding 300 years, since the'' {{Page aside|310}}''Conquest, had formed only a few lines in thickness''. How many thousands of years, then, it required to form this deposit 60 feet deep, is a matter of simple calculation. In this connection we may now quote something of a discovery spoken of in the “Peruvian Antiquities.”<ref>A paper published by Mr. E. R. Heath in the ''Kansas City Review of Science and Industry'', November 1878.</ref> | The Peruvian ''guano'' (''huano''), that precious fertilizer, composed of the excrement of sea-fowl, intermixed with their decaying bodies, eggs, remains of seal, and so on, which has accumulated upon the isles of the Pacific and the coast of South America, and its formation are now well known. It was Humboldt who first discovered and drew the world’s attention to it in 1804. And, while describing the deposits as covering the granite rocks of the Chinchas and other islands to the depth of 50 or 60 feet, he states ''that the accumulation of the preceding 300 years, since the'' {{Page aside|310}}''Conquest, had formed only a few lines in thickness''. How many thousands of years, then, it required to form this deposit 60 feet deep, is a matter of simple calculation. In this connection we may now quote something of a discovery spoken of in the “Peruvian Antiquities.”<ref>A paper published by Mr. E. R. Heath in the ''Kansas City Review of Science and Industry'', November 1878.</ref> | ||
{{Style P-Quote| | {{Style P-Quote|Buried 62 feet under the ground, on the Chincha islands, stone idols and water pots were found, while 35 and 33 feet below the surface were wooden idols. ''Beneath the guano'' on the Guañape islands, just south of Truxillo, and Macabi just north, ''mummies, birds, and birds’ eggs, gold and silver ornaments were taken''. On the Macabi the laborers found some large valuable golden vases, which they broke up and divided among themselves, even though offered weight for weight in gold coin, and thus have relics of greatest interest to the scientist been for ever lost. He who can determine the centuries necessary to deposit thirty and sixty feet of ''guano'' on these islands, remembering that, since the conquest three hundred years ago, no appreciable increase in depth has been noted, can give you an idea of the antiquity of these relics.<ref>{{HPB-CW-comment|[''Op. cit''., p. 463.]}}</ref>''}} | ||
If we confine ourselves to a strictly arithmetical calculation, then, allowing 12 lines to an inch, and 12 inches to a foot, and allowing one line to every century, we are forced to believe that the people who made these precious gold vases lived 864,000 years ago! Leave an ample margin for errors, and give two lines to a century—say an inch to every 100 years—and we will yet have 72,000 years back a civilization which—if we judge by its public works, the durability of its constructions, and the grandeur of its buildings—equalled, and in some things certainly surpassed, our own. | If we confine ourselves to a strictly arithmetical calculation, then, allowing 12 lines to an inch, and 12 inches to a foot, and allowing one line to every century, we are forced to believe that the people who made these precious gold vases lived 864,000 years ago! Leave an ample margin for errors, and give two lines to a century—say an inch to every 100 years—and we will yet have 72,000 years back a civilization which—if we judge by its public works, the durability of its constructions, and the grandeur of its buildings—equalled, and in some things certainly surpassed, our own. | ||