In the midst of a pine forest……
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Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
The Three Laughers of Tiger Glen – repost
The Sound of Laughter Among Friends
Category: Nature
Apposite Abstraction
oxymoron
As I write this post we remember is September 11, 2001, the 19th anniversary of the attack on the USA, the loss of the World Trade Center towers, 2,977 deaths, more than 25,000 injuries. The greatest loss of life, in a single event, of firefighters and police (343 and 72).
This morning a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck the Atacama desert. The photograph is a possible effect of the April Fool’s Day, 2014, 8.4 magnitude earthquake that rocked the desert, further damaging infrastructure throughout the region. The earthquakes are one reason Humberstone was (is?) on the list of endangered World Heritage Sites.
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References
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
So Little Time
All In An Hour
Eighty eight years from founding to abandonment, beginning as “La Palma” works of the “Peru Nitrate Company,” and, from the time stamps of my photographic files, we had a little over sixty (60) minutes to explore them.
This meant displays such as “Tool Hall: Pampa Men’s Engineering and Effort” were passed by….
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Here is a forerunner of the colorful ribbon on the generic black suitcase, a mark as much for ownership as for identification. In this case ultimately abandoned or lost.
The wheel tipped the load…..
Distant hills can be alluring, as these were not.
Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”
References
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
So much depends…
note the small splash of red
…/ upon / a red wheel / barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens ~William Carlos Williams
Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.
Click me for the next post of this series, “So Little Time.”
Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”
References
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Weights and Measures
*At each nitrate works there shall be a balance and a bar placed outdoors alongside the company store to compare weights and measures.”
Quoted above is a demand of the workers in the 1907 “18 Pence Strike.” This name referrs to the amount of a wage for a particular mining workers.
Another demand was *While the tokens are being abolished and pay is starting to be given in legal tender, each oficina, its Manager representing it and pledging compliance, shall agree to accept tokens from every other oficina on a par with its own, paying a fine of 50,000 pesos for every refusal to do so.”
The organization of workers is one of the patrimonies from Humberstone and other Saltpeter Villages referred to by the World Heritage committee.
The “bar and balance” of the quoted demand is a scale. The balance scale, below, is from our day visiting Humberstone.
Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.
Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”
References
Wikipedia: “Santa María School massacre.”
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Humble and Worn
Handheld
Irreplaceable and well worn. Well worn for being irreplaceable by dint of access, distance and commonality.
Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.
Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”
References
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Quern Stone
Neolithic technology
Neolithic peoples are the first known to use stones such as this to grind seed and grain into flower. The lower, stationary, stone is a quern. A pitted grinding surface is a required quern characteristic and this one has that, I cannot see how a rounded, unstable bottom, is helpful. The upper, called a handstone, well polished from use.
Click any photograph for a larger view and use Ctrl-x to zoom in closer.
Click me for the next post in this series, “Humble and Worn.”
Click Me for the first post in this series, “Iquique by Sea I.”
References
Wikipedia: “quern” and “metate.”
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Stoves and Ovens
La Cocina
“Mesa” in Spanish translates to “table.” A tall, flat plateau is called a mesa for the similarity to a table. Mesa can also mean dining, as translated on this sign.
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Looking through my photographs, nothing for dining stands out. Neither, on the Humberstone map I cannot find either the dining or kitchen areas.
I find the wood floor in these photographs puzzling as wood is flammable and ashes fall. Stove and oven doors above and below both open directly to the floor. In the restoration, it is possible all the cooking apparatus was moved to one building with a wooden floor.
It appears these ovens were crafted from local material.
References
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Worker Homes
The token system
Ten on the map is listed as “casas obreros”, translated to English as “workers homes.”
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Abandoned since at least the 1960s, the homes are completely empty of furnishings and show the wear of sixty years.
We walked the dusty streets, grateful for the calm atmospheric conditions, imagining what life was like for the workers of Humberstone.
They had each other amidst the vast emptiness of the desert.
Click me for the next post of this series, “Stoves and Ovens.”
Click me for the first post of this series, “Iquique By Sea I.”
References
Websites
Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works World Heritage page
Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
A Perfect Afternoon On Beebee Lake repost
Anticipating Our Tenth Wedding Anniversary
After work on a 2008 Friday afternoon in October we sped over to Beebee Lake on the Cornell University Campus to catch the late afternoon glow……
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Copyright 2020 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
