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is laid on wooden tracks. The two shutes, from which the boats are loaded, will be sufficient for a long series of years: and as pretty near all other accommodations, such as houses for the hands, for storing provisions, for catching rain water in cisterns, are put up, the working capital need not be large.
In conclusion, I wish to remark, that the harbor of Navassa is an ordinary trade wind harbor, but being sheltered by the adjacent mountainous islands of St. Domingo and Cuba from heavy gales and seas, is much improved thereby. There are no reefs or shoals near the island that would make shipping dangerous, and vessels can haul close along side of the cliffs, if they wish to do so, as the depth of water all around the island is twelve fathoms, and the same depth for a mile or more from it, with but little variation. The facilities for loading vessels are therefore very superior. Owing to the cliffs being about forty feet perpendicular, the phosphate can be shuted down in boats and launches. One hundred tons a day are frequently put on board of one vessel with only thirty or forty men and two boats.
Taking into consideration the immense quantity of phosphate deposited on your island, the great ease for digging and loading, the short distance to a market, the giving out of the phosphatic guanoes of the Caribbean sea, the scarcity of it in nature, and the great demand, which will be almost unlimited, for the manufacture of super-phosphate, it cannot fail but that Navassa must become the main source from which this mineral can be supplied.
Wishing you all success,
I remain,
Very respectfully, yours,
AUGUSTUS H. FICK,
Mining Engineer.
