The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1901-08-21
Beaufort and the Isles of the Sea.

This, Mr.. Editor, is the veritable
esland of the rustling wings" the
term used by an ancient Hebrew
prophet to describe the white-winged
craft that skinned the waters Of the
Mediterranean Sea. Boats big or
boats little are going and coming all
the time. There are boats to Charles-
ton and Savannah and to the Islands SO
numerous which make up Beaufort
County, county with more water
than land. The surrounding streams
are called rivers, but really they are
only estuaries of the sea, large when
the flowing tide comes in, and small
when it goes out. Very few, if any,
of them have fresh water sources, but
all are salt, and comprise the home
of the shrimp. oyster and soft she'll
crab upon which the citizenship base
their daily living. The phosphate
mining, once so great a source of in
come, has diminished until the work
paws but little. The Broad and Beau
fort rivers have been plowed with the
dredges, until not foot OF virgin
mud remains to be worked. The
dredge boats have left Beaufort river
altogether, and are now working IN
Broad River, which opens into st.
Helena sound. The process is curl
Gus one and worthy of study. A
dredge boat and wash boat, both
supplied with engines, boilers and ma
chinery, are hitched together. From
the front of the dredger great steam
shovel is dipped into the water, and
brings up about a cart load of mud
and phosphate rock. On arising from
the river this shovel is switched
around, and drops its contents into
large hopper on the wash boat, into
which streams of water are pouring.
From the hopper it passes into a hori-
zontal revolving cylinder, six feet in
diameter and eight feet long. While
this revolves, other streams pouring
in continue the washing of the rock to
cleanse it from the mud. The cylin
der having a slightly downward incln-
alton at one end, the rock
after the washing, rolls cut upon the
floor, where it is shoveled into iron
buckets, lifted to a second hopper on
the deck Of the wash-boat, re-washed,
and at last deposited on a lighter
which lies alongside. When the
lighter is full, the contents being
eight or ten tons, another is run up in
its place, the loaded lighter being
then carried to the mills, where the
rock is ground and sacked, after hav-
ing been dried over fires as in lime
kiln, or sometimes ships are in wait
ing to receive the crude rock, and it
is loaded upon them from the lighters,
to be manufactured into fertilizer in
some other part of this country or in
Europe. The grade of rock found in
the rivers varies largely, and the
price is fixed by quality, not by guam
tity. The ground rock must measure
up, in its analysis, to certain set Of
figures which reveal The component
elements, and if it falls below this,
the price is reduced proportionately.
The captain of dredge is master
machinist, is well paid and we'll fed.
Now that the work is all being done in
Broad River, fifteen miles away from
Beaufort, the captain remains on his
dredge all the week until Saturday
noon, and has but little time at home
I have met and formed the acQuaint-
ance of several Of them. and found
them all to be genial and intelligent
gentleman.
Capt. Emory, who bosses the Co
lumbia, is a deyout and useful mem
Der of the Methodist church. l have
made several visits to his dredge, and
. camped'' with him, as be calls it,
on the huge bosom of Broad River,
where the stream is about four miles
wide.
A spud. Do you know what spud
Isl l had the pleasure of forming the
acquaintance of one last summer a
dredge has four of them, TWO at each
end. They are huge. rough h-hewn
pieces of timber, twelve inches square,
fifty feet long, and work UP and down
in sockets at the end of the dredge.