possibility of substituting California petroleum, already used to some extent, is being considered seriously by many operators.
To get water for the maquinas is not everywhere easy, for the water supply always has been the chief problem in this region. Seacoast towns for a long time depended on supplies brought by vessels from four or five hundred miles farther south. It is interesting to note here that one of the prominent figures in the development of the industry after 1880 was an English iron worker, who is said to have come out to Chile to work on the tanks or boilers of some of these water-carrying vessels, and who later went home a "nitrate millionaire." The first railroads had trouble getting water for their engines, some resorting to the distillation of salt water, but now, for the railroads and the chief cities and towns, piping of water 100 to 200 miles from the Andine streams has relieved the situation greatly. Water, however, still must be used sparingly and almost everywhere the poorer people buy it by the pailful, a discarded kerosene tin generally serving as a pail. A common price is 10 centavos (= 3 cents) for five gallons. In the pampa, wells yield a good deal of water, commonly more or less salty, but this source can not be counted on everywhere. Thus in central Antofagasta one plant secures more than 35,000 gallons of water daily from three wells, the deepest of which is less than 100 feet, but another plant, less than a mile away, found no underground water after spending 250,000 pesos in the attempt.
After the water in the cachuchos has boiled for several hours, it is passed to another tank where it encounters fresh caliche, and so on, until a saturated solution known as caldo, or broth, eventually is secured. When this point is reached the water is run off to a series of
