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Guano   /gwˈɑnˌoʊ/   Listen
Guano

noun
(pl. guanos)
1.
The excrement of sea birds; used as fertilizer.



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"Guano" Quotes from Famous Books



... they called at the Chincha Islands, took in a cargo of guano for China, and shaped their course then eastward across the calm southern ocean, whose lonely monotony was only broken by the occasional appearance of one of the larger kind of sea-birds, or by the distant spouting of a whale. On board, however, the same peace was far from prevailing. ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie

... lieutenant on board of him. Stood on and tacked, and having brought the stranger under my guns, I began to feel sure of him (our smoke stack was down, and we could not have raised steam in less than two hours and a half). He proved to be the ship Vigilant, of Bath, Maine, bound from New York to the guano island of Sombrero, in ballast. Captured him. Took from on board chronometer, charts, &c., and a nine pounder rifled gun, with ammunition, &c. Set him on fire, and at 3 P.M. made sail. This was a fine new ship, being only two years old, and ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes

... the rubber dress and in his stocking feet began to climb the steep side of the island with the intention of discovering how far the Chilean outposts extended in his direction. It was a tiresome climb. Up over guano beds and broken rock, and as the wind was off shore, scarcely a breath of air came to cool the heated atmosphere and as he toiled on, the perspiration fairly streamed from his pores. When he reached the top, a cool land ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... In all cases in which amides or albuminoids were employed, the formation of ammonia preceded the production of nitric acid. Mr. C.F.A. Tuxen has already published in the present year two series of experiments on the formation of ammonia and nitric acids in soils to which bone-meal, fish-guano, or stable manure had been applied; in all cases he found the formation of ammonia preceded the formation of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... either of the others named, but is by no means unproductive, being preferred by the tobacco growers, who, however, often mingle a percentage of other soils with it, as we mingle barnyard refuse with our natural soil. Some tobacco planters have resorted by way of experiment to the use of guano, hoping to stimulate the native properties of the soil, but its effect was found to be not only exhausting to the land, but also bad for the leaf, rendering it rank and ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... with his wife and children and servant to a point on the coast east of Carthagena, known as Rio de Hache. This contract he never performed. The original object of the voyage, as he alleged, was to obtain a cargo of guano, at an island which he named Buida. As a matter of fact, there is no such island, or at any rate none could be found on the maps, nor was its existence known to the officers of our Government who had been engaged in taking soundings in the ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... shatter the affectations and hypocrisies of a generation, and to summon a civilized world to the worship of righteousness and truth! Is this a Guinea trader or a prophet who is angry when Quashee prefers his pumpkins and millet, reared without the hot guano of the lash, and who will not accept the reduction of a bale of cotton or a tierce of sugar, though Church and State be disinfected of slavery?[E] It is a drop of planter's gall which the sham-hater shakes testily from his corroded pen. How far the effluvia ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... materials before publishing the first number of the "Spectator." Remember, however, that copious preparation has its perils also, in the crude display to which it tempts. The object of high culture is not to exhibit culture, but its results. You do not put guano on your garden that your garden may blossom guano. Indeed, even for the proper subordination of one's own thoughts the same self-control is needed; and there is no severer test of literary training than in the power to prune out one's most cherished sentence, when it grows obvious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... expansion, annexation, reaching out to remote wildernesses far more distant and inaccessible then than the Philippines are now—to disconnected regions like Alaska, to island regions like Midway, the Guano Islands, the Aleutians, the Sandwich Islands, and even to quasi-protectorates like Liberia and Samoa. Why mourn because of the precedent we are establishing? The precedent was established before we were born. Why distress ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... the barbarous cacophony of the clanking pump rose in the waist; and streams of ill-smelling water gushed on deck and made valleys in the slab guano. Nares leaned on the rail, watching the steady stream of bilge as though he found ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... listening with all her ears, and hearing with perhaps a third of them, broke in to say that her husband was not a captain. "He was second mate when he died," she explained. "Aboard the bark Charles Francis he was, bound for New Bedford from the West Indies with a load of guano." ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... state to eat. Every body and every thing seemed uncomfortable. It was a great change from the clean and pleasant Golden Age. We saw the islands of San Domingo, Narvasa, Jamaica, Cuba, Santa Inagua, and Mayo Guano, ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson

... a silver duck press for a free spender from Butte or Pittsburgh. I, too, had thought that; but wait, just wait, until you have seen a maitre d'hotel on the Avenue de l'Opera, with the smile of the canary-fed cat on his face, standing just behind a hide-and-tallow baron or a guano duke from somewhere in Far Spiggottyland, watching this person as he wades into the fresh fruit—checking off on his fingers each blushing South African peach at two francs the bite, and each purple cluster of hothouse grapes at one franc the grape. ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... illustration, we present to our readers a mammoth excavator, built by the Osgood Dredge Company of Albany, N.Y., for the Pacific Guano Company of California, for uncovering their phosphate deposits on ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various

... created their wealth and made possible their great public works. All accounts of the country at the time of the Conquest agree in the statement that they cultivated the soil in a very admirable way and with remarkable success, using aqueducts for irrigation, and employing guano as one of their most important fertilizers. Europeans learned from them the value of this fertilizer, and its name, guano, is Peruvian. The remains of their works show what they were as builders. Their skill in cutting stone and their wonderful ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin

... superficial knowledge of the commercial products of the whale, one must learn of baleen, of whale-oils and spermaceti, of ambergris, whale-guano, whale-ivory, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... alkalies. Ammonium occurs in nature as chloride in sal ammoniac (AmCl), as sulphate in mascagnine (Am{2}SO{4}), as phosphate in struvite (AmMgPO{4}.12H{2}O). Minerals containing ammonium are rare, and are chiefly found either in volcanic districts or associated with guano. Ammonia and ammonium sulphide occur in the waters of certain Tuscan lagoons, which are largely worked for the boracic acid they contain. The crude boracic acid from this source contains from 5 to ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... in lodgings; but they'll tilt up the cart, and put a bit of guano cloth over it and a little kennel of straw in it. Or if a man is alone, he'll lay down on the sheltery side of a wall and sleep there. They are hardy with all the hardships they go through; they are the hardiest people ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others

... valleys is the driest and most bracing in the British Isles, and grain is cultivated up to 1600 ft. above the sea, or 400 to 500 ft. higher than elsewhere in North Britain. Poor, gravelly, clayey and peaty solis prevail, but tile-draining, bones and guano, and the best methods of modern tillage, have greatly increased the produce. Indeed, in no part of Scotland has a more productive soil been made out of such unpromising material. Farm-houses and steadings have much improved, and the best ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... dislike of his native subjects by establishing a poi-factory of his own near Honolulu. Poi is sold in the streets in calabashes, but it is also shipped in considerable quantities to other islands, and especially to guano islands which lie southward and westward of this group. On these lonely islets, many of which have not even drinking-water for the laborers who live on them, poi and fish are the chief if not the only articles of food. The fish, of course, are caught on the spot, but poi, ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... nitrate beds is commonly believed to be similar to that of beds of rock salt (pp. 295-298), borax, and other saline residues. The source of the nitrogen was probably organic matter in the soil, such as former deposits of bird guano, bones (which are actually found in the same desert basin), and ancient vegetable matter. By the action of nitrifying bacteria on this organic matter, nitrate salts are believed to have formed which were leached out by surface ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... constituents in the soil. Continued vigor is better maintained by wood-ashes perhaps than by any other fertilizer, after the soil is once deepened and enriched, and it may be regarded as one of the very best tonics for the strawberry plant. Bone-meal is almost equally good. Guano and kindred fertilizers are too stimulating, and have not the staying ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... the one available foothold for observers, a coral reef named Caroline Island, seven and a half miles long by one and a half wide, unknown previously to 1874, and visited only for the sake of its stores of guano. Seldom has a more striking proof been given of the vividness of human curiosity as to the condition of the worlds outside our own, than in the assemblage of a group of distinguished men from the chief centres of civilisation, on a barren ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... the exhibits, to be placed in two neighboring sheds, of the Native Guano Company and the Millowners' Association. The former will show all the patents used for the purification of the rivers from sewage, and the latter will display in action their method of rendering innocuous the chemical pollutions which factories ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various

... the action of ammonia on alloxan, which is itself derived from the uric acid of guano by treatment with nitric acid, and was known nearly forty years back to stain the fingers and nails red. The first murexide sent into the market was a reddish-purple powder, dissolving in water with a fine purple tint, leaving ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... pleasing and poetic thoughts; for commerce is really as interesting as nature. The very names of the commodities were poetic, and as suggestive as if they had been inserted in a pleasing poem,—Lumber, Cotton, Sugar, Hides, Guano, Logwood. Some sober, private, and original thought would have been grateful to read there, and as much in harmony with the circumstances as if it had been written on a mountain-top; for it is of a fashion which never changes, and as respectable as hides and logwood, or any natural product. ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... waiting for employment;—on along the railway, which came in at the same gates, and which branches down between each vast block—past a pilot-engine butting refractory trucks into their places—on to the last block, [and] down the branch, sniffing the guano-scented air, and detecting the old bones. The hartshorn flavour of the guano becomes very strong, as I near the docks, where, across the Elba's decks, a huge vessel is discharging her cargo of the brown dust, and where huge vessels have been discharging that same cargo for the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... haste to descend; the covering of the balloon gave indications of bursting, but in the meanwhile he had time to satisfy himself of the volcanic origin of the mountain, whose extinct craters are now but deep abysses. Immense accumulations of bird-guano gave the sides of Mount Mendif the appearance of calcareous rocks, and there was enough of the deposit there to manure all the ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... Maritime claims: Contiguous zone: 12 nm Continental shelf: 200 m (depth) Exclusive economic zone: 200 nm Territorial sea: 12 nm Disputes: none Climate: equatorial; scant rainfall, constant wind, burning sun Terrain: low, nearly level coral island surrounded by a narrow fringing reef Natural resources: guano (deposits worked until 1891) Land use: arable land 0%; permanent crops 0%; meadows and pastures 0%; forest and woodland 0%; other 100% Environment: treeless, sparse and scattered vegetation consisting ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... that they will give 'L.1000 and a gold medal for the discovery of a manure equal in fertilising properties to the Peruvian guano, and of which an unlimited supply can be furnished to the English farmer at a rate not exceeding L.5 per ton.' Also, 'fifty sovereigns for the best account of the geographical distribution of guano, with suggestions for ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... of strong poles of bamboo, often more than a hundred feet in height. The nests are swept from the rock with a pole terminating in a small iron spatula, and carrying near the extremity a wax candle; falling to the ground, which is floored with guano several feet thick, they are gathered up in baskets. The white nests are gathered three times in the year at intervals of about a month, the black nests usually only twice; as many as three tons of black nests are sometimes taken from one big cave in the course of the annual gathering. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... not allow us, or I verily believe we might have killed tons of birds between Cape Walker and Cape York, principally little auks (Alca alle);—they actually blackened the edge of the floe for miles. I had seen, on the coast of Peru, near the great Guano mines, what I thought was an inconceivable number of birds congregated together; but they were as nothing compared with the myriads that we disturbed in our passage, and their stupid tameness would have enabled us to kill as many ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn

... American sailor with a knife, in the Calle de San Francisco, if father had not paid five ounces, and become security for his good behavior. But he ran away, after all, and went as a common sailor in a nasty guano ship. Dolores cried very much, and it was long before she would sing for me again. Oh, she did know such delightful songs!—Mi Nina, and Yo tengo Ojos ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... out of the taxes which it levies on its people. We know, and every one has for years known, that in India there is a source of revenue, not from taxes levied on the people, but from opium, and which is very like the revenue derived by the Peruvian Government from guano. If we turn to those three years and see what relation the expenditure of the Government had to taxes levied on the people of India, we shall find, though we may hear that the taxes are not so much as we imagine, or that the people ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... on the surface in a circle 3 feet in diameter round each (dwarf) tree in March. Pears on the Quince in a light, dry soil should have the surface round the tree covered during June, July and August, with short litter or manure, and in dry weather be drenched once a week with guano water (1 lb. to 10 gallons), and equal parts of soot, which must be well stirred before it is used. Each tree should have 10 gallons poured gradually into the soil. Lime rubbish or chalk should be added wherever there is any deficiency." If it ...
— The Book of Pears and Plums • Edward Bartrum

... partly manufactured material, including prepared tallow, meat extracts, meat, butter, cheese, lard, dressed leather, etc., represented L2,454,760, whilst the by-products, including bones, dried blood, guano, waste fats, etc., were valued at L430,734. Thus, Argentina's total export from the cattle industry (after supplying her own needs) ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various

... are powerful fertilisers of the soil; but the three principles which constitute their manurial value—namely, nitrogen (ammonia), phosphoric acid, and potash—are purchasable at far lower prices in guano and other manures. Nevertheless, many farmers believe that the most economical way to produce good manure is to feed their stock with concentrated aliment, in order to greatly increase the value of their excreta. They consider that a pound's worth of oil-cake, or of corn, ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... of the last few years has taught us one thing more certainly than another, it is the unfailing excellence of Guano for every kind of ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson

... miles round; it was of rock, and there was no beach nor landing place, the sea washing its sides with deep water. It was, as I afterwards discovered, one of the group of islands to which the Peruvians despatch vessels every year to collect the guano, or refuse of the sea birds which resort to the islands; but the one on which we were was small, and detached some distance from the others, on which the guano was found in great profusion; so that hitherto it ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... indeed raised many struggling farmers to comparative independence.[622] A very large quantity of the bones used came from South America.[623] Porter also noticed that 'since 1840 an extensive trade has been carried on in an article called Guano', the guana of Davy, 'from the islands of the Pacific and off the coast of Africa'. Nitrate of soda was just coming in, but was not much used till some years later. In 1840 Liebig suggested the treatment of bones with sulphuric acid, and in 1843 Lawes patented the process and set up his ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... constant and integral element, either forming part of its structure, or one of the conditions of vital processes, that and that only deserves the name of aliment. I see no reason, therefore, why iron, phosphate of lime, sulphur, should not be considered food for man, as much as guano or poudrette for vegetables. Whether one or another of them is best in any given case,—whether they shall be taken alone or in combination, in large or small quantities, are separate questions. But they are elements belonging to the body, and even in moderate excess will produce little ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... horticultural —— agricultural Carrot rot, by Dr. Reissek Carts v. waggons Cedar, gigantic Cockroaches, to kill Cycas revoluta, by Mr. Ruppen Drainage bill, London Forests, royal Fruits, wearing out of —— disease in stone, by M. Ysabeau Fumigator, Geach's, by Mr. Forsyth Guano, new source of Honey, thin Horticultural Society Horticultural Society's garden Machine tools Manures, concentrated —— liquid, by Mr. Bardwell Marvel of Peru Mechi's (Mr.) gathering Mirabilis Jalapa ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 197, August 6, 1853 • Various

... provided the surface is well fined by the harrow; it is well to have as stout a crop of clover or grass, growing on this sod, when turned under, as possible, and I incline to the belief that it would be a judicious investment to start a thick growth of these by the application of guano to the surface sufficiently long before turning the sod to get an extra growth of the clover or grass. If the soil be very sandy in character, I would advise that the variety planted be the Winnigstadt, which, in my experience, is unexcelled for making a hard head under almost any conditions, ...
— Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them • James John Howard Gregory

... me, weighed my plans, and took a greater interest in them than I did myself. At first, when I was unaware of this interest of his in my affairs, he had to divine my intentions, as, for instance, at Papeete, when I contemplated going partners with a knavish fellow-countryman on a guano venture. I did not know he was a knave. Nor did any white man in Papeete. Neither did Otoo know, but he saw how thick we were getting, and found out for me, and without my asking him. Native sailors from the ends of the seas ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... confirmed years later when vast quantities of menhaden were converted into guano for crops by Atlantic coast factories, a practice changed only when livestock-nutrition studies showed that menhaden scrap was too valuable a protein source to be spread on land. The fish referred to by Washington were ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton

... which increased his dream-revenue by 60l. a year. This extraordinary result was due, not to any merit in the nuts, but to an ancient and imaginary custom of the village which compelled the inhabitants to deposit round its foot a material defined by Victor Hugo as 'du guano moins les oiseaux.' The most singular story, however, and which we presume is to be received with a certain reserve, tells how he roused two of his intimate friends at two o'clock one morning, and urged them to start for India without an hour's delay. The cause of this journey was that a certain ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... and they told us she was the Sydney pilot boat Minnie, under charter to two gentlemen aboard who had an option on one of Arundel's guano islands. They had struck a leak in their main water tank, and were in for repairs ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... farmers were well acquainted with the different kinds of manures, and made large use of them; a circumstance rare in the rich lands of the tropics, and probably not elsewhere practised by the rude tribes of America. They made great use of guano, the valuable deposit of sea-fowl, that has attracted so much attention, of late, from the agriculturists both of Europe and of our own country, and the stimulating and nutritious properties of which the Indians perfectly appreciated. This was found in such immense quantities on many of ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... we have also the great group of fresh-water and marine microscopic plants known as Diatoms, which likewise secrete a siliceous skeleton, often of great beauty. The skeletons of Diatoms are found abundantly at the present day in lake-deposits, guano, the silt of estuaries, and in the mud which covers many parts of the sea-bottom; they have been detected in strata of great age; and in spite of their microscopic dimensions, they have not uncommonly accumulated to form deposits of ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... Kaloramas, a nation of savages few had heard of, and yet fewer visited. In short, I may mention here that the only benefit the government expected to derive from going to the great expense of sending a minister to Kalorama was that the savage, whom divers renegades had set up for a King, might have a guano island or two, which by some well-directed trick could be fritted away from him; while, having impressed him with the greatness of our prowess, he would hold it good policy to keep his peace. With a ponderous document, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... and half filled it. It was not like water, it did not bubble so high when some had been taken; so he just took what he could get. Pursuing his researches a little further he found a range of rocks with snowy summits apparently; but the snow was the guano of centuries. He got to the western extremity of the island, saw another deep bay or rather branch of the sea, and on the other side of it a tongue of high land running out to sea. On that promontory stood a gigantic palmtree. He recognized that with ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... visitor to out-of-the-world places. He corroborated all that my Indian sailors had claimed for the rabihorcado, and added the interesting information that lighthouse-keepers desired the extinction of the birds because the guano, deposited by them on the roofs of the keepers' houses, poisoned the rain water—all they had ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... a young volunteer on board, who had figured at Brighton reviews, and was now on his way to join his father in New Zealand, where he proposed to join the colonial army. We had also a Yankee gentleman, about to enter on his governorship of the Guano Island of Maldon, in the Pacific, situated almost due north of the Society Islands, said to have been purchased by ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... securities he brings, and which are astonishingly varied. For instance, he brought me to-day as collateral to an accommodation, a deed to a South Brooklyn block, title clouded; a Mackerelville second mortgage; ten shares of coal-oil stock; an undivided quarter right in a guano island, and the note of a President of the Unterrified Insurance Company. 'How much was the cartage, Bos?' said I, for you see my great mind descends to the smallest particulars, and I was benevolent ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... valued at about thirty thousand dollars. Magdalen a Bay is a favorite place for them, and often three hundred are taken at a single haul in the powerful nets. Here and in most of the northern localities the entire body is utilized,—the carcass being used in the manufacture of guano. So perfectly are the bodies preserved by the cold of these northern regions that if they cannot be removed at the time of capture they are secured in the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... hunters paraded, steam-engines pumping water, steam-engines slicing up roots, distant columns of smoke where steam-engines are tearing up the soil. All the while a scientific disquisition on ammonia and the constituent parts and probable value of town sewage as compared with guano. And at intervals, and at parting, a pressing invitation to dinner [when pineapples or hot-house grapes are certain to make their appearance at dessert]—such a flow of genial eloquence surely was ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... forecast of some kind; and the experience of other countries goes to show that, while deposits of the precious metals are, under our present conditions, no more an abiding source of wealth than is a guano island, they may immensely accelerate the development of a country, giving it a start in the world, and providing it with advantages, such as railway communication, which could not otherwise be looked for. This they are now doing for Matabililand and Mashonaland, countries ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce



Words linked to "Guano" :   body waste, organic, guano bat, excretory product, excreta, excretion, organic fertilizer, organic fertiliser, excrement



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