Author: Cara Giaimo / Source: Atlas Obscura
Every day leading up to April 1, we’re telling the story of one ridiculous historic prank. Find more here.
William Buckland always loved poop. Over the course of his long and accomplished life, the 19th-century polymath discovered that so-called “bezoars,” coveted by natural historians for their beautiful shapes, were actually fossilized feces. Once, he visited a European cathedral famous for the puddle of “martyr’s blood” that continually gathered on its floor.
He kneeled down, licked the liquid, and confidently deemed it to be bat excrement. Plus, he did his darndest to eat every type of animal under the sun, which likely made his own lavatory experiences fascinating.Now that you know this, it should make sense that Buckland was an early adopter of guano as fertilizer, and that he immediately used it to pull off a devilish prank.
Guano–aka seabird poop—is full of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, three chemicals that help plants grow. Although South Americans had already been using guano to amp up their soil for centuries, word of this miraculous material didn’t reach Britain until about 1804,…
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