The St. Lucie County tribune. (Fort Pierce, St. Lucie County, Fla.) 1905-1920, 1906-02-16
GOLD MINES
OF FLORIDA
Some Resources of the State That
Surpass Ore Deposits.
PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL
The Goods Captured BY General Jack
Frost In 1895 More Than Replaced
by Buried Wealth Found.

While Florida has no great coal or
metalliferous ore deposits, such as cop
per, lead, zinc, etc., it has vast gold
mines, in better shape and more await
able than in quartz and hard prohyritic
rocks, requiring big stamp mills, cyand-
ing outfits, etc. A few years ago it
was fancied that "apples of gold'
could be grown on trees here in Florida
and for period of twenty years or
more there was great boom. How
ever, in one night more than one hun
bred million dollars were captured by
General Jack Frost. The people then
turned their attention to agriculture,
and more recently to stock-raisng.
Florida Crackers" can produce cheaper
cheese, beef, butter, pork, mules, sheep,
poultry, etc., than other sections of
the United States by so per cent.
The Armours, Swifts and other
great packers have seen this and have
bought large tracts Of $4,000 to 100, 900
acres to raise their own meats, and it is
now seen that few more big"
freezes will make Florida the leading
agricultural and stockrasing State.
Gold mine No. l.
There has never been a geological
survey made of this State, but incident
ally, during the last ten or fifteen years,
the greatest phosphate mines in the
world have been developed. Gold mine
No. 2.
Again incidentally, immense kaolin
beds have been discovered and several
large plants are now in operation, and
china wares equal to the best imported
are made from Florida kaolin. Gold
mine No. 3.
Again, incidentally, immense beds of
fuller's earth have been discovered,
and today Florida produces more than
nine. tenths of this product used in the
United States. Gold mine No. A.
Last, but not least, valuable clay
beds have been discovered ferrous
clays, white, buff and blue, and adapted
to the manufacture of white and
ornamental front brick.
Immense beds of the clays, kaolins
and fuller's earth have been discovered
and hydraulic cement has been recently
discovered, near Lake City, and her
many railroads branching out to all the
points of the compass, and within fifty
to seventy-fve miles of several sea-
ports, bring all these gold mines within
easy reach of all the world. And it
should be borne in mind by clay work.
ers that here in Florida clay can be
manipulated twelve months in the year,
instead of six or eight in the North, so
that the same investment should yield
from Is to 100 per cent more year.
The South has long had the fixed
habit of exporting her raw materials
and importing the manufactured goods.
But the live Yankees who are settling
in the South are showing us the best
way to manufacture our raw materials,
here where the climate and all other
conditions are more inviting, and where
we can put in twelve months in the
year.
We beg to insist that there is no
patent on these good things; but, on
the other hand, We invite manufacturers
of clay of all kinds and cotton, sugar,
starch, all kinds of woods,
fertilizers, fabrics, etc., ten years free
of city taxes and plant sites donated.
we school your children, from
the kindergarten to full-hedged "a.
b." free gratis, and you can attend
any church of your choice, and vote as
you please either the Democratic
ticket or with the oily whites" In
short, Florida is Gods cosmopolitan
country, where you can be at ease and
do as you please, No cold winter, no
hot summer just happy medium, be-
twixt and between. General Sherman
once said if Texas had good society and
good water it would be fit to live in.
But added to our gold mines,' good
schools, good climate, good health, ETC.,
we also have what General Sherman
says Texas lacked, good water and
good society. IF. B. Noodle (Lake
City,, in the Clay Worker.