Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1894-07-13
PHOSPHATE MINES.
WHERE THE RICH FERrILIZING
MATERIAL is FOUND.
Origin Of the Deposits a Mystery
How crock Phosphatc' Is
Trcatcd-nIihing for
Phosphatcs.

were formeu by mollusks and other
creatures with shells, some little and
some big, which left their houses be-
hind them when they died. But it is
believed by some authorities that the
phosphoric acid was derived from the
fsaan, which holds so much of it in
solution. Certain species of mollusks
whose shells arc found in the beds Sc
crete phosphate of lime themselves
and may thus have aided i'll the work.
Nobody knows how the deposits
were formed. 1t is certain that mt
comparatively recent period the lime
banks sank beneath the sea, from
which they subsequently emerged
again. Thus they were covered over
with several feet ill thickness of the
sand which is the characteristic sur
face soil of Florida. The beds of the
so-called crock phosphate" which ex-
tend over hundreds of square miles,
are located by driving long iron rod
with sharp point down though the
sand to the stratum of lime beneath.
This stratum of solid stuff forms n
layer that is rs much as fifty feet thick
in places. 1t is covered with from
two to twenty feet of sand. Over n
great pnrt of the State ono cannot dig
without coming to the rock phosphate.
After its presence has been ascertained
beneath a given area of surface soil,
the latter is cleared away, and the
phosphate of lime is quarricd out with
blast, pick and shovel. 1t is dried in
kilns, and is then shipped to Balti-
more and other northern points. On
its arrival it is ground fine and treated
with snlphuric acid. The powder thus
prepared is mixed with various fer
tilizing materials, such rs nitratcs,
or bones, horns, blood, and such refuse
from packing works. The final product,
pulverized and perfectly desiccatcd, is
not Mt all offensive to the nostrils.
The best phosphate material CON
tains as much as eighty per cent. of
phosphate of lime. The latter in COM
position closely resembles bone that
has been deprived of its organic mat
ter. Human bones, for example, have
fifty-seven per cent. of phosphate of
lime and thirty-three per cent. of ani-
nal matter. 1t was only in 1913 that
the Duke of Richmond, incidentally TO
some experiments, discovered for the
first time that the value of bones MS n
fertilizer was due not TO their gclatine
or fatty matter, rs Ind been supposed,
but to their phosphoric acid 1t was
this discovery which first excited in
terest i'll ;:hosphntee
Phosphoric acid is one of the ele-
ments most essential to vegs table
growth. 1t enters largely iuto the
composition of plants. Seeds are more
than half made of it. A COW ut pas
ture during one summer will take
away from the land fifty pounds of it
in veal and milk. Accordingly, the
soil must be continually resupplied
with it. Thus it is not surprising that
great attention should have been ax-
cited abroad by the discovery of phos-
plate deposits i'll Florida, Georgia,
North and South Carolina. In the
last-named State, which, ms pro-
ducer, ranks next with Florida. there
are at present thirty mines in opera
ton. Small mines have been opened
in various other parts OF the country.
la the middle part of Florida hun
dreds of miles of soil are undcrlaid
with stratum many feet thick of
pebbles of phosphate. 1t is supposed
that these are fragments Of whit was
originally rock formation OF ,1,os-
plate OF limo, such MS has been AL
ready described. BY the action of
winter the rock became disintegratcd,
and the same agency hns worn the
pebbles to shapes of more or less
roundness. Mixed i'll with them are
discovered great numbers of the teeth
and bones of various animals. Among
these remains the teeth of sharks,
many of which must have been MS
much as eighty or ninety feet long,
are conspicuous. There are also
numerous bones of species of land ami
mnls long ago extinct.
AS would naturally be the case, great
quantities of these phosphate pebbles
are found i'll the beds of some streams,
having been washed out of the banks.
They occur i'll gravel bars, which are
composed almost wholly of them very
often. Being very hard and heavy,
they have formed accommodations,
while other debris has been sifted out
and tloatcd away. Such river deposits
yield large part of the present phos-
plate output of Florida.
The mining is conducted by scows.
Each scow has an engine on board and
II pipe which extends to the bottom
of the stream. Through the pipe the
gravel is sucked up and, being brought
aboard, passes over revolving sleeves.
The refuse of clay and sand, being
finer than the phosphate pebbles,
passes through the sieves and is thrown
away. The pebbles are dropped into
p lighter alongside, which, when it is
filled, is towed to market by n tug.
One-half OF the phosphate thus OBJ
tanned from the Caloosabatchee River
is composed of casts of molluscan
shells, which are so perfect as to show
even the beaks of the bivalves and the
marking of the univalves. In some
streams of Western Florida the bulk
of the phosphate deposit is composed
of bones-largely those of mastodons,
megatheriums, elephants, manatees,
muskrnts and horses Thav ara oil