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Navigational Track Chart for the German Nitrate Ship Pampa, 1904

Navigational Track Chart for the German Nitrate Ship Pampa, 1904

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Description
By the mid-1870s, the Pacific guano trade had mined all the available bird guano from the South American and remote Pacific Ocean islands. Fortunately for international agricultural interests, nitrate and phosphate mines had recently been discovered inland in Peru and Chile to fill the gap, and big sailing ships from Europe and the United States exchanged the avian excrement for chemicals that could be mined and blended for fertilizers and other products.
This track chart measured daily progress for the German steel-hulled full-rigged ship Pampa from Hamburg, Germany to "The West Coast" (South America) on a 1904 voyage. Built at Rostock for the Flying P line of nitrate clippers, Pampa measured 295 ft. 5 in. long and 1777 tons (gross); the long-lived ship was an extremely fast sailer and set several records in its day. Pampa was dismasted in 1922 in a storm, sold by F. Laeisz (owners of the Flying P Line) and sent to British ship breakers.
Location
Currently not on view
Object Name
chart
date made
1904
Physical Description
paper (overall material)
Measurements
overall: 11 1/2 in x 14 3/8 in; 29.21 cm x 36.5125 cm
ID Number
1999.3004.02
catalog number
1999.3004.02
nonaccession number
1999.3004
Credit Line
Gift of Capt. J. Ferrell Colton
See more items in
Work and Industry: Maritime
Transportation
Measuring & Mapping
Data Source
National Museum of American History
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