Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-08-24
SULPHUR FOR WORLD
VAST DEPOSITS OF THE PURE
ELEMENT ON UNALASKA ISLAND.
Yellow Powder Exists in Alaska
Rival to Sicily-The Riches Of
Mount McCutcheon.
From the Tacoma Ledger.

From the Tacoma Ledger
| And now it is for sulphur-pure sulphur in
tons, in carloads, in shiploads-for which
Alaska Is to become most famous. Hitherto
the worlds supply of sulphur for the max
| ing of powder and in the Industrial arts has
been coming for centuries from the Island
of Sicily, where dozen vessels at time
are seen loading the yellow material But
that Sicily is not circumstance for de-
posits of pure sulphur to Mount McCutch.
con. on Unalaska Island. is the report just
brought down from there by George Carl
son, who is at present and has been for
years in the Swedish government employ
as mining engineer. fitting him more es-
pec1ally for passing an expert on the de-
posts Of Mount McCutcheon. He was for
years located at the Sicilian sulphur mines
as expert, locating new beds of the stuff
and experimenting the workings. 1t was
on this account the gentleman's annual va
cation from the Swedish service was eager
ly taken advantage of by the New Workers
who hold claim to the new sulphur dis
coveries of Unalaska Island, and he was
cured and sent up there at once. He spent
one month on the mountain with force of
twenty-five men, and recently reached Ia
coma on his return trip by the Elihu
Thomson. the boat having picked him up al
Dutch Harbor
Without Equal in the World.
The Swedish government expert finds that
for vast deposits of the purest flower sui
phur the Alaskan discovery is without equal
IN the world. The beds lie in blanket fashion
over most of the mountain, thinning out
as the level of the sea is reached, but
eryWhere prevalent in almost unbroken
strata. He found the mountain to be $500
feet above the surrounding ocean, and COW
cred more than half way down from the
summit with eternal snow. The summit re-
veals an extinct volcano, with a great crater
half mile wide. The interior of the crater
is Sunken some hundreds of feet, and the
sides are all honeycombed, affording shell
tering caves for Mr. Carlson and his TWEEN
ty-hve men for many nights. Owing to
there being no timber at all on the mountain
the month spent in the SHOWS was spent
for the most part entirely without fire or
hot food. but the wonderful revelations
more than compensated the traveller. In
one spot the removal of thirty feet of snow
ana Ice and some twenty feet of broken
she'll rock let the workers into a body of
commercially pure sulphur. the extent of
which was not discovered, for a shaft of
nifty feet had not gone through it, and it
was impossible to sink further owing to the
constantly caving sides In all the deposits
We're tapped at sixteen points and found to
he at every point more free from adulterous
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES DOOlGS ana pumlce, winch
hinder the workings in Sicily-than ever the
sulphur beds of Iceland. Said Mr. Carlson:
Staked Years Ago.
ut cannot be said to be an entirely new
discovery, since it was staked and recorded
five years ago-and then abandoned. But
we have done the very first work ever per-
formed on the deposit, and the original
stalking was done from the showings at the
h9 Of no tot T,,J;
for centuries been digging out more or less
of the stuff, for medicines principally. I
don't want to say too much about the mat
ter, for while I was there the original
stakers of five years ago returned from
Seattle and restaked the ground right on
top of us. The original stalker was De
Sofa of Seattle, but the following gold rush
into Alaska diverted that company's atten-
ton, and the sulphur was never explored,
or for a certainty it would never have been
abandoned. Then 1t was staked by the
men who, have sold it to the New York
spectators have represented, and ! have
been sent out. I am carrying back my re-
port If the development of the property
would cost million. 1t would yet be a
proposition of worldwide Importance
WHILE as matter of fact, it is close to the
waters of the Pacific ocean, but ten miles
from Dutch Harbor-as good a harbor at
any time of the year as could be desired.
Easily Accessible.
"a bit of a tramway, and the company
can begin to load the sulphur onto ships
at once, and 1 see no end to the deposits
in sight. / sure it is destined to take
the place of Sicilian sulphur in the markets
of the world from it's being 95 per cent
pure, requiring no process of publication,
and lying in such vast bodies that the labor
of loading is all the expense there is to it.
Yes I should judge there is to be a big
lawsuit over the possession of the property
now that 1t has been found to be so ex-
ceedingly valuable, though a concern
which has been in undsputed possession
for five years and has never even sunk
hole or had man on top of the mountain
where the really valuable sulphur is, would
seem to me to stand little show in a con-
test with the United States as arbiter.''
The trip has been an expensive one, and
landing as he did, after banking hours Mr.
Carlson is forced to wait for the opening
of the banks again on Monday before re-
Stunning his journey in the direction of New
York.
Ugly Climate.
He brings out with him several hundred
pounds of the sulphur. all Of which looks
exactly does the drug store sulphur,
which, mixed with molasses, used to form
so large a part of the family medicine
chest in grandmothers days. The ex-
posures endured on the trip were severe
while they lasted, but the gentleman is
rapidly recovering under the genial sun
shine encountered several days out from
Puget sound OF all the variations of eli
mate along the Alaskan coast, Mr.. Carlson
declares the climate in the neighborhood
of the mountains the worst In twenty
nine days on the mountains 1t was never
possible to see the surrounding ocean a few
miles away. A dense, wet, binding, driv-
ing, chilly, unwholesome fog enveloped the
mountain constantly, causing a distressing
semi darkness at all times. The moisture
in the air over the Japan current is con-
densed by contact with the snow into
vapor, the supply never failing the year
round, and the summit of the mountain