3-017-071 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sombrero, one of the Leeward Islands, in the Caribbean Sea, 1865. Source of '...the richest natural deposit of phosphate of lime at present known...a report was made to the British Government, but did not meet with that consideration which subsequent events prove it to have deserved. In 1856 the Americans took possession of the island, and in the course of a very short time exported to the extent of 100,000 tons of this valuable fertiliser, to resuscitate the exhausted lands of the Southern States. Subsequently their proceedings attracted the attention of a British surveying expedition, at that time engaged in the West Indies...It appears that the Americans have already quarried away a considerable part of the island, and sold the substance in New York. This transaction led to an official correspondence between the British and American Governments, and eventually the right of the British Crown to the possession of this valuable deposit was acknowledged by the United States Government. Sir Roderick Murchison considers our holding the Island of Sombrero to be of great national importance, in providing our agriculturists, from a British possession, with a plentiful supply of a good substitute for the guano of Peru'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.