Guano Act of 1856
Here is a neat bit of American history most of us didn’t learn in 10th grade US History.
Back in the mid 19th Century, Europeans began to get all excited over what was literally Bat Sh*t. Apparently, they realized how potent this substance was for fertilizing crops. Immediately, the Big Players of the time went in search the valuable and rich deposits of this guano and attempted to acquire as many little islands full of this stuff as they could find. In strictly strategic terms, it would not be prudent to yield this resource (not to mention the land being acquired) to other nations of the world, when the USA itself could play in that same game!
So, in response to this came the Guano Island Act of 1856. The first bit of it says:
Whenever any citizen of the United States discovers a deposit of guano on any island, rock, or key, not within the lawful jurisdiction of any other government, and not occupied by the citizens of any other government, and takes peaceable possession thereof, and occupies the same, such island, rock, or key may, at the discretion of the President, be considered as appertaining to the United States.
In the end, we got something close to 100 islands all over the world, many of which we still claim today. It began, in reality, as the United States’ first dramatic motions toward non-continental American expansionism.
This is still an active law on the books, U.S. Code, Title 48, Chapter 8, Sections 1411–1419. So, If you were just moseying along in a boat somewhere in international free waters, and notice the there is a preponderance of bats, and a cave for them to poop in, do your civic duty and claim that sucker for Uncle Sam. K? Cool.
This site has a pretty decent run down on the basic history of this act and how it came about. I also posted here about Guano and its high nitrogen as a fertilizer. The only other thing I remember about Bat Guano was Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Yep, high comedy that goes for the bat-toilet-humor crowd.
February 20th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
I ended up with a fungus inside my camera once when I went splelunking in a cave that had once been a guano mine.
Better the camera than my lungs!