The Dillon tribune., 1886-08-21
Beaverl,eatl County Officers.
rHE PHOSPHATE BEDS OF BEAUFORT
Fhs Great Industry of the South Carolina
| COast-TIe Brotherhood Drc:lse.

The phosphate beds make the great in
dustry Of Beaufort, as of most of the coast
Southwest OF Stone ferry: ant! as all the
Gegroes average 81 IL day in cash earnings,
br can do SO il they want to work. their
general condition is good. a satisfactory
EXPLANATION Of these phosphate deposits
has not been worked out, and it is some
hing of problem, as the geology of
South Carolina jumps all the intermediate
bges between archsean and tertiary. In
The piedmont section OF the state the azoic
rocks stand out sharp and abrupt from
(he hills and line the channels Of the many
bright and swiftly flowing streams of that
region. \ little further down the slope
The drift covers these rocks, and they are
(till there:and the excavations at Columbia
bring out a horde of blue and tiecked
granite. A little lower, there is, in popu-
Jar language, mo bedrock" At Orange.
burg they bored LOO feet for artesian
water, and found drift all the way down.
Elay, sand, and mari.
Still coming down the slope, one reaches
point where the sand has travelled 50 far
rom It's original matriX in the Blue ridge
fhat It is completely triturated, and the
pills have no consistency. Along this line,
an average distance of perhaps sixty
niles from the coast, is a line of sand hills
which seem to have been shaped by the
Wind and below them is the broad, flat,
Generally unhealthful. "low country"
where the purple and chocolate-colored
treams flow sluggishly over Shiny bot.
oms between muddy banks shrouded by
he funeral moss, And yet on the sea.
yard side of this tract, in the bottom Of
ne creeks and inlets, but occasionally ex-
ending long distance inland, is the phos-
phate rock,
IL was known to be of sOrle value as
arly as 1856, but nothing was done to
leVelop it until the reconstruction legisla-
are OF 1868 chartered Il company to work
!. Since then the companies have paid a
oyalty to the state for all they took out Of
laVlgable waters or from state land. and
ast year the state received Sl15,000 from
mat source. AS much was taken from
private lands, the yield must have ex.
eeded :OO, GOO tons. The supply is practi-
auy lnexhaustible, as the strata wherever
pierced are over twenty feet thick; and in
many places it is known that successive
trata is superimposed with dirt between.
"hen first mined the rock is dark gray or
pearly black; after being washed and
sfOund 1t Is lighter gray. The COM
nercial article sell at $6 to 50 per ton, and
expected that the total yield of the
!ate this year will he worth over 81. $780,
NO
great impulse has been given the work
ateiy by the Brotherhood dredge-the in
sentlon Of Samuel Brotherhood-which
kakes up the rock by thirty-siX iron SCOOP
buckets, running on axles, somewhat in
Ihe style OF the endless platform of II horse
ower. In the original rock are sharks
eetn and fish bones of many kinds, which,
suppose, with the phosphate of lime.
make 1t valuable as II fertilizer. In front
y wnere write are two steam dredges at
SorK; across the point are extensive
WORKS on the land, and elsewhere in the
pace are large establishments. A few
testoes still follow the old system of wad-
'ns IN the shallow creeks and carrying out
acn detached pieces of the rock as they
tan ilandle.-sParke" in Chicago Times.