Horrible Tragedy in Baltimore
(The New York Times, August 23, 1854)
On. Saturday last, at dinner time, at Fells Point, an industrious German, who had been engaged in unloading a ship, was, with his wife, seated upon a bag of guano near an immense pile, and, while conversing with his wife, in fancied security, the bags high above tottered and fell upon them, and when rescued a pitiable spectacle was revealed. Both were awfully mangled, and the situation of the woman was more distressing than words can depict, she being expected hourly, before the accident, to give birth to a child, and death, at latest advice, was momentarily anticipated.
For many years bat guano was a major industrial feedstock for fertilizers and explosives. I understand they still mine the stuff in Peru. I put together a Metafilter post about this some time back, but it didn’t seem to be too well received:
http://www.metafilter.com/72342/Harvesting-Guano
Dr. No had a guano harvesting operation in the James Bond book!
Damn! Learn something new everyday, sometimes two things on good days!