Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-02-24

these remains the teeth of sharks, many of
which must have been as much as eighty
or ninety feet long. are conspicuous. There
are also numerous bones of species of land
animals long ago extinct
AS would naturally be the case, great
Quantities of these phosphate pebbles are
FOUND in the beds of some streams having
been washed out of the banks They occur
in gravel bars, which are composed almost
Whoily OF them very often. Being very
hard and heavy, they have formed accumu-
lations, while other debris has been sifted
out and foated away. Such river deposits
yield a large part of the present phosphate
output of Florida. Peace river is the rich
est locality for that sort of water mining
all the way from Barlow to Charlotte
harbor. Other phospha tie producing streams
are the Alfalfa, Manatee and Caloosa-
hatchee rivers.
Mining for Phosphatcs.
The mining is conducted by scows. Each
scow has an engine on board and a 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 peb-
bles, passes through the sleeves and is
thrown away. The pebbles are dropped
INTO lighter alongside, which, when il is
hlled is towed to market by n tug. One
half OF the phosphate thus obtained from
the Caloosahatchee river is composed of
casts of molluscan shells, which are so
perfect as to show even the beaks of the
blValves and the markings of the univalves.
In some streams OF western Florida the
bulk of the phosphate deposit is composed
OF bones-largely those of mastodons me-
gatheriums, elephants, manatees. muskrats
and horses. They are all transformed into
pure phosphate of lime.
UP TO thirteen years ago nobody had ever
imagined that there We're any phosphates
IN Florida. Boulders of the material as big
as Hour barrels We're frequently used as
underpinning for houses. while smaller
ones were employed in the construction of
chimneys and sugar furnaces and as paving
for sandy sidewalks In the ruins of the
OLD brick chimneyS of the winter quarters
or Gen Andrew Jackson. fragments of the
valuable substance contained in the clay
can still he seen. In the winter Of 1881
Capt. ]. Francis LIE Baron. while survey
Ing Peace river discovered the wealth
in the pebbles He was in command of a
detachment of the engineer corps of the
army. Fully approaching the scientific
as Wen as commercial importance of the
find. he shipped nine barrels and boxes
of the phosphate to Prof Baird of the
Smithsonian Institution. Nevertheless he
was not able to induce anybody TO invest
money in the mines. One capitalist refused
to pay for large area of rich territory
as much cash as the same individual SUBJ
sequentlv gave for a single mine
In 1887 Col T. s. Morehead, after ex-
aiming the gravels of Peace river estab-
lished the industry which has since become
vast a source OF profit. Last wear a
French syndicate invested more than half
A million dollars in Florida phosphate lands
This resource has made the railways of
many of them. The available supply Is
well nigh ineXhaustble and promises to
bring enormous wealth to the fowery penin-
sula. RENE BACHE.