my recent adventures with bats got me wondering about the word "guano." specifically, why does bat shit have a special word whereas other animal dropping do not?
it turns out, the word isn't just for bats, but rather for the excrement of any kind of sea bird, bats or seals. why those three? because they're high in phosphorus and nitrogen, making those dropping valuable for making both gunpowder and fertilizer.
that brought me to the guano islands act, an act of congress dating from 1856. it empowers any u.s. citizen to claim the possession of any island with guano deposits anywhere in the world, so long as the island isn't under the jurisdiction of any other government. when it is claimed, the island automatically becomes u.s. territory.
the act's overt imperialism seems a little crazy now. but its constitutionality was upheld by the supreme court and it is still on the books today. not that it matters all that much. i doubt if any piece of rock on earth isn't already claimed by some other government nowadays. but during its hey day, the guano islands act was used to claim over one hundred islands. the last use of the act seems to be in 1964, when leicester hemingway (ernest's younger brother) evoked the act to declare the independent island nation of new atlantis. which doesn't really make sense. the guano islands act makes islands part of the u.s., it doesn't make independent countries. then again, hemingway's "island" wasn't really an island. it was a bamboo raft that he anchored off the coast of jamaica with an old ford engine block. i doubt if there was any guano on it either.
