Neatorama is proud to bring you a guest post from...  ...which may rank up there as the most unusual. The Guano Islands Act, which still exists today in the U.S....  ...of the United States … if there’s a guano deposit on it.(Thank you, President Pierce.)Why w...  ...posit on it.(Thank you, Presiden...

For about 200 years, global industry went crazy fo...  ...r about 200 years, global industry went crazy for guano . Explorers discovered islands in the ocean that w...  ...atural resource. Along the way, miners found that guano is also an excellent preservative for dead bodies...  ...ies, as some natural mummies...

Photo: Chris Grooms/Queen's Univ...  ...with mesh in 1993. The two-metre stack of guano represents 50 years of bird droppings...

The following is reprinted from Bathroom...  ...m Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again The guano -rich Chincha Islands of Peru (1863) The next tim...  ...e windshield of your car, spare a thought for the guano miners of Peru's Chincha Islands. They spent thei...  ...rud. Don't ask who discovered that bi...