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By this means her old, wornout fields were made to yield greater
harvests than our fresh land. Germany and England were like two duelists
buying powder at the same shop. The Chilean Government, pocketing an
export duty that aggregated half a billion dollars, permitted the
saltpeter to be shoveled impartially into British and German ships, and
so two nitrogen atoms, torn from their Pacific home and parted, like
Evangeline and Gabriel, by transportation oversea, may have found
themselves flung into each other's arms from the mouths of opposing
howitzers in the air of Flanders. Goethe could write a romance on such a
theme.
Now the moment war broke out this source of supply was shut off to both
parties, for they blockaded each other. The British fleet closed up the
German ports while the German cruisers in the Pacific took up a position
off the coast of Chile in order to intercept the ships carrying nitrates
to England and France. The Panama Canal, designed to afford relief in
such an emergency, caved in most inopportunely.


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