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ERA OF CONSTITUTION MAKING 259 a notable feature in the year 1872. Important conces- sions were made by congress in other matters than rail- roads. In 1871, the exclusive privilege was granted for introducing a new method of illumination by means of purified naptha. In the following year congress con- ceded to Senor Ramirez, discoverer of guano at Magel- lan's Straits, the right to remove three thousand tons of it within a year, from the islands of Santa Magdalena and Quarto Maiter, he paying §8,000 for the privilege. This discovery of the valuable fertilizer at the Straits revived an old question, that of the true boundary be- tween Chile and the Argentine Republic, first broached in 1843, when Chile had established a colony in the south. The Argentine press took up the discussion and clamored for that government to examine the basis of Chile's claim more thoroughly than had been done and to take prompt and active steps in the matter. This long pending dispute with the Argentine Re- public over the boundary of Patagonia, was continued through the years 1872, 1873, 1874, and 1875. The question had continued to be for a long time a cause of much irritation between the republics. In 1856 a treaty had been entered into by the terms of which it was agreed that the two countries should recognize the limits as they existed at the time of their separation from Spain in 1810. The Chileans claimed to Cape Horn on the south, and to the Andes on the east. In 1873, the Argentine government, urged thereto by the press, commissioned Dr. Quevada, director of the na- tional library, to proceed to Spain and unearth such ancient documents as had any bearing upon the ques- tion. His researches were published in eight volumes, and it appeared that he made out a case in favor of Argentina, so far at least as the boundaries during the colonial period were concerned. During the year 1875,