Lot 1041
Letters From A South America Guano Expedition. Two autograph letters from James Koopman, a ship's doctor, to his daughter Nellie in Maine, total of 6 pp. One is written from the Lobos Islands (off the north coast of Peru and famous for their guano), 1876, 2 May. He writes of various people around him: Capt. Randal, the Scots cook and his German wife, a Capt. Patton of Bath [Maine] with a partially-paralyzed wife, the ships Grandee and Southern Ocean, and a cat which "hangs around me all the time like a child homesick…" The second letter is from Callao (Chile), 1876, June 26. He writes that "the ship Stars of N. Yarmouth has foundered and all but one man was lost…There is three other Guano ships here in the same fix that I am and four in Valparaiso…every one refused to proceed…we could not get the ship home…" Faint stain. One original stamped and postmarked (at New York) envelope. Guano is the feces of seabirds, bats, and seals. It was used as fertilizer and as a gunpowder ingredient due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and its lack of odor.
Estimated Value $300 - 400.
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