Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1903-06-06

process Is somewhat Complicated.
Either birthstone from Sicily, or
pyrites, which is a compound of sui
phur and iron, some of which is i'm
ported from Spain and some produced
from mines in this country. are the
raw materials used in the manufac-
ture.
The birthstone or pyrites are burned
in specially constructed burners, and
the sulphurous gases which result from
the burning are caused to mix with
nitrous gases produced from nitrate of
soda, and drawn into great towers
made Of lead and packed with f1ints;
thence they are drawn into immense
Ieaden chambers or rooms, usually
three in row connected together. In
these chambers the sulphurous and nj
trous gases are mixed with steam, and
condensed into sulphuric acid, which
falls in rain on the floors of the lead
en- chambers. 1t is necessary to con
struct these chambers of lead, because
almost any other material would be
destroyed and eaten out by the action
of this corrosive acid.
The phosphate rock is hauled to the
factory, usually a building located
alongside the sulphuric acid chambers,
1t is there thrown into crushers which
break It into small pieces; thence con-
veyed to the grinding machinery
either steel mills or buhrstones,
where it is puIverized into a fine meal
Or flour. You would naturally ask
at this point, why not use this fine
phosphate meal directly on the soil,
without mixing it with the caustic
corrosive sulphurtc acid? 1t is sim
ply because this meal is of rocky
nature and only dissolves with diff.
Guilty in the soil waters, and we have
seen plants require their food to be
easily soluble in water, so that the
roots suck it in. The phosphate rock
meal, no matter how finely ground,
dissolves only to very limited ex-
tent in water, and 1t is necessary to SO
treat it as to hberate the rock-bound
phosphoric acid; and render it soIu-
BILE in water. Hence the necessity
for the sulphuric acid.
The phosphate meal (say it is from
South Carolina rock, and contains 28
per cent Of phosphorfc acid, combined
with lime to form 81 per cent of bone
phosphate of Iime) is first weighed,
and we will take say 1000 pounds of
it, and dump it into circular castlron
mixer, into which has already been
introduced 1000 pounds of sulphuric
acid Of the proper strength.
The acid and meal are now thor.
oughIy mixed togethed by machinery
in the iron pan The mixture be-
comes very hot, the strong su1phurio
acid attacks the lime combined with
the phosphoric acid of the phosphate
meal with amazing and furious ener.
gy and appropriates to itself the great
er part of the lime in the form of sui
phate Of lime, gypsum or 1and-plaster,
and liberates the same moment the
phosphoric acid, which is only allowed
to retain It's hold on a small part of
the lime, with which it was first com.
bined
This smaller portion of lime and
the phosphoTic acid with which 1t is
combined is what the chemists call
mono-calcic-ph or superphos.
phate of lime. 1t is also known as
the acid phosphate of lime. This
acid phosphate of lime, or superphos.
phate is soluble in water; we have,
therefore, accomplished what we set
out to do, rendered the phosphoric
acid soluble. This dicovery was made
by the great chemist Liebig, who thus
put the entire world in his debt, lay.
ing the foundations of the great fer.
tilizer industry, and rendering an in.
estimabIe boon to modern agriculture
JOHN M. McCANDLESS,
State Chemist.