Connecticut western news., 1889-01-23
PHOSPHATE BEDS.
South Carolina's Curious Depos-
 its of ife-giving Rock.
Methods of Mining the Most
 Valuable Fertilizer Known.

The phosphate beds of Charleston, s. C., have proved of great value to the place, and they have more than com pensated for the gradual loss of the cot ton trade which has gone largely to the cities north or to Savannah on the south These beds and the great ''Ashley fish basin' are the most wonderful and ineX- plicable formations known to geologists. The deposits consist of nodules of phos- phate of lime, thickly interspersed with the huge bones and teeth of antediluvian mammalian and marine mammoths of gi- gantic proportions. The mastodons, giant balloons, prodigious gorillas, liz ards thirty three feet long, and other huge graminivorous and carnivorous quadrupeds have been found lying in the same bed with briny leviathans, vora- cious marine vultures and other monsters of the deep. The beds have been styled by Agassiz as the ''greatest curi osity of the world, and they constitute by far the most valuable fertilizer known to man since the exhaustion of the Peru vian guano deposits. That they are an almost inexhaustible source of wealth to the whole state may well be judged, and thousands of people are engaged in get ting the fertilizers to market. The amount of trade in phospate rock in Charleston amounts to several million dollars year, and it is increasing stead
 fly year by year as the demand for the fertilizers becomes more general through out the world. The deposits underlie a vast region of the country, thirty miles wide and seventy miles in length.
 Scientists differ as to the origin of this great deposit and in their estimation of the quantities of rock contained in the deposit. The rock forms the bed of many rivers leading to the ocean, and crops out of the land at many, points. The river deposits are mined with crow bar, pick and drcdges. The land rock is excavated with pick and shovel and is found in a seam ranging ill thickness 1 from three to thirty inches, at a depth of about ten feet below the surface of the ground. The country in which the rock is found is generally level, and the soil is soft and moist. The rock is sounded for by long, sharp pointed steel rod. below the surface test pit is sunk to ascertain the thickness of the stratum and to find if the rock will analyze up to the standard.
 From the mines the rocks are hauled in dumping cars to the washers. The rock is here c1 oshed into pieces of uni form size. It then falls into troughs or tubs resting on an incline. In each of these tubs an octagonal shaft, cased in iron and set with blades or flukes, re- wolves, which turns the rock around and forces it out of the tubs upon screens. While in the tubs it is subjected to a continuous and powerful stream of water which cleans it of all foreign matter. There are sixteen companies now en- gagged in mining the land rock, with a joint capital of about $2, 900, ,000 The production of these mines averages about 300, ,00O tons of rock year. This in
 dustry has been the bedrock of Charles ,, ton life for many years, and now it seems all along the coast the perennial fruits of the earth, which in themselves are things of beauty, will become as valuable in a commercial sense as the life giving rock which has been vitalized by the decaying bones of antediluvlan mon sters. Side by side with the rivers and fields which furnish forth phosphate rock are the broad sa vannas and low-lying islands where mel ons, cabbages, asparagus, potatoes and strawberries flourish abundantly. Large quantities of these products are shipped north every year, Commercial Adver- tiser.