The former Chilean saltpeter mining communities of Humberstone and Santa Laura were declared Unesco World Heritage sites in 2005.
During his expedition through the Atacama desert, he discovered a method for transforming Chile saltpeter and Potassium chloride into Potassium nitrate.
Potassium nitrate | sodium | Sodium fluoroacetate | Sodium sulfate | Sodium hydroxide | Sodium thiopental | Sodium nitrate | sodium hydroxide | Sodium dodecyl sulfate | Sodium | sodium valproate | Sodium Tungsten Bronze | Sodium tungsten bronze | Sodium sesquicarbonate | Sodium orthovanadate | Sodium nitrite | sodium nitrate | Sodium hypochlorite | Sodium hydrosulfide | Sodium cyanide | Sodium citrate | Sodium-calcium exchanger | Sodium bicarbonate | sodium bicarbonate | Gallium nitrate | Fractional sodium excretion | Animal Nitrate |
The plot takes place in 1879 through 1880 during the War of the Pacific, when Chile, Bolivia and Peru fought over control of the sodium nitrate deposits in the Atacama desert.