The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1903-12-10
GREAT SALT MINE OPENED.
Quicksnnd on Louisiana Coast Con.
4uercd and the Great Salt
Deposits Reached.

II has been discovered in the last
few years thai the gulf coast of Louis
lana is rich in minerals, especially sui
phur, salt and ore.
There could be, according to appear
ance, no more uninviting mineral field.
The country is dreary marsh, rising
in one place into five so-called islands.
which are merely hills In the marsh,
or low-lying pine flats. Below this
marsh, however, lie, at comparative
ly short distance, valuable minerals;
but put tantalizingly beyond the reach
OF man, for between the soil crusts and
the marsh lies an im-Aense quicksand
which has defied for years all engineer
ing skill to penetrate.
In one place only. Avery's island, or
Petit-Anse, there is no quicksa1d The
rock salt discovered there was found
to be 5000 or more feet thick of pure
salt, extending in all directions and
leaving little doubt that the surround
ing country is built up on foundation
Of salt.
But when it came to mining else
where for this salt, the quicksand in
terposed and stopped operations Av-
ery's island, by the by, supplied nearly
all the salt used in the confederate
states during the civil war, and cara
vans of mules carried the precious min
eral overland to the Atlantic states.
A little to the west of the salt de-
post in Calcasiou parish, a valuable
deposit of sulphur was found, probably
the largest and certainly the purest in
the world. But between the soil and
the sulphur lay that same immense
quicksand which hobs up everywhere
and through which no engineering tai
ent can sink a shaft.
Company after company tried it and
became bankrupt in the experiment.
One company operated an ice plant
there, and sought to freeze the quick
sand, and then cut through the ice.
The plan failed like all the others.
When finally the property passed
into the hands of the Standard Oil Co.,
it abandoned the idea of sinking a
shaft through the quicksand 1t ran in
stead pipe through it, and tried the
hot in contradiction to the cold pro-
cess.
Hot water is forced down the pipe
into the sulphur, which it melts, and
the mineral is pumped up in liquid
form and then allowed to cool and
harden. Thus the sulphur is mined,
although the miners do not come with
in several hundred feet of the mineral.
Around the pipe which brings up this
mineral from the bowels of the earth
has grown up a considerable settle
ment bearing the somewhat diabolical
name of Sulphur City.
But this hot water melting plan,
while it works well for sulphur, will
not do with salt. The salt could, Of
course, be similarly melted and brought
to the surface, but it is too cheap to
stand this expensive treatment
1t became necessary in the case of
the salt to sink a shaft through the
quicksand; and the old experiments
"AASA hcI0 UCCu uUdAuOuGu dI tu0 SUI
phur mine were renewed. They have
finally been successful at Meek's is
land, which is one of the same group
as Avery's island, and figures in the
maps as Grand Coteau.
The cost of bridging or tunnelling
the quicksand has been very expensive
The salt was struck only ninety-three
feet from the surface. Into this shaft
was sunk 600 feet. 1t passed more than
five hundred feet through sand salt
To avoid the quicksand and keep
water out of the salt, steel castings
were driven down. Inside are wooden
blocks curved to make complete cir
Gle and the space between this and the
steel castings was filled with concrete
This shaft of iron, wood and con-
crete was extended into the very heart
OF the salt deposits, and as the shaft is
water tight, the salt is wholly protect
ed from any injury from water.
The quicksand once passed, there is
not the slightest difficulty in mining
salt, which is blasted out in immense
pieces by dynamite, and broken into
the smaller sizes that can be more
readily handled and transported by
water direct to the northern markets,