The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1889-03-23
south carelina,a phosphate Beds.
! y cnmmeroial Adrertiser.


The phosphate beds Of Charleston, 5.
c., have proved of great value to the place,
and they have more than compensated for
the gradual loss of the cotton 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 inexplicable formations
known to biologists. The deposits consist
of nodules of phosphate of lime, thickly
interspersed with the huge bones aud teeth
Of antcdiiuyian mammalian and marine
mammoths Of gigantic proportions. The
mastodons, giant balloons, prodigious goril-
las, lizards thirty-thrcc feet long, and other
huge graminivorous and carnivorous quad
rupeds have been found lying in the same
bed with briny leviathans, voracious marine
vultures and other monsters of the deep.
The beds have been styled by Agassiz as
the greatest curiosity of the world, and
they constitute by far the most valuable
fertilizer known to man since the exhaus-
ton of the Peruvian guanO deposits. That
they are an almost inexhaustible source of
wealth to the whole state may well be
Judged, and thousands of people are en-
gagged in getting the fertilizers to market.
The amount of trade in phosphate rock in
Charleston amounts to several million dol
lars year, and it is increasing steadily
year by year as the demand for the fertil-
izers becomes more general throughout the
world The deposits underlie vast region
of the country, thirty miles wide and sew
enty 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 crowbar, pick and dredges.
The land rock is excavated with pick and
shovel and is found in seam ranging IN
thickness from three to thirty inenes, at
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 issounded
for by long, sharp-pointed steel rod,
When rock is struck from six to ten feet
below the surface test pit is sunk to as
certain the lilchuCcS VI NhS stANtuhA NoN ~
find if the rock will analyze up to the
standard.
From the mines the rocks are hauled in
dumping cars TO the washers. The rocks
here crushed into pieces of uniform size.
1t then falls into troughS or tubs resting on
an incline. In each of these tubs an oe-
tagonal shaft, cased in iron and set with
blades or fukes, rcvOlves, which turns the
rock around and forces it out of the tubs
upon screens. While in the tubs it is sub
jected to continuous and powerful stream
Of water which cleans it of all foreign matter.
There are sixteen companies now en-
gagged in mining the laud rock, with joint
capital Of about $1,000, 900 The produc-
ton of these mines averages about BOO, 600
tons Of rock year. This industry has
been the bedrock of Charleston 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,
viii become as valuable in a commercial
sense as the life-giying rock which has been
vitalized by the decaying bones Of antedi-
Iuvian monsters. Side BY side with the
rivers and fields which furnish forth phos-
phate rock are the broad savauuas and low
living islands where melons, cabbages, aspa-
ragus. potatoes and strawberries flourish
abandantly. Large quantities Of these
products are shipped north every year.