The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-06-24

300 feet, there came rush or Vie smelling poisonous sulphurated ny drogen gas, so strong that It pollute' the air for miles around. It was strohS enough to kill muIe and was deau- Iy to man and beast. It drove tue miners away from the well ana It Nep' on flowing for months.
 Captain Lucas was prospecting Tor oil. not for suphur, and he mad no idea of the value of his discovery. lie aLoWed nis lease to lapse ana It was not until within a few years ago thas | the property came into the hahds ol the present owners, E. F. Swehsoll and others. who comprise the freepott Sulphur company, which has spent mil lions in sinking wells and in build ing the great plants by which the sul- phur is brought to the surface
 But suppose we visit the mine and see how the sulphur flows from the earth. We start at the new town of Freeport which is two miles away and ride Tn au- tomobiles over the prairie. On a little hill in the distance we see what seems to be enormous factories with tall der ricks about them and oil tanks nearby. Between us and the buildings great mountains of light yellow stand out against the blue sky The factorles con tain the machinery which heats the not
  into the earth; the oil tanks are filled with the fuel oil that furnishes the great 1 heat necessary for melting the sulphur; | and the mountains of yellow are massive l blocks of sulphur built up by the streams | of lemon yellow gold, which are pouring | forth day and night all the year | through | This is our view from the distance. | As the car brings us closer, the build | ings seem to increase in size until they | cover many acres. The great blocks oi l sulphur grow larger and larger, and the , immensity of the plan daWns upon us i Look at that huge pipe which follows the 1 road over which we are riding That | was laid to carry fuel oil from the tank steamers in the harbor out to the plant ] The mines require 4500 barrels of ol ] every day, and there are 90,0O0 barrels III l the tanks which stand over them. The l company has a fleet of tank steamers ] for bringing this oil from the wells ol l Tampico, in Mexico, and it is used ] solely for producing the heat.
 l The factories are really great hot water | plants They are filled with huge boil | CTS which burn more than a million anc l a half gallons of oil every week anc i heat from S,000000 to 100000 gallons o1 water a day. This "ater must be raised l to temperature of 332 decrees, or l2' | degrees dDONe DolllllS- u Is tDSn PNiiiPSe l down into the ground through pipes z | thousand feet long at pressure of 25 | pounds to the square inch. It goe' 1 through the beds of sulphur and melt: them to a liquid, which the compressed air machines force to the surface s' | that it flows out in a stream of brigh | yellow which might be compared witt l the wine known IS sauterne.
 I The beds of sulphur cover about 5O | acres. The chemical lies in pockets an'
 veins in a gypsum formation heaVil. 1 loaded with water, but when it come | to the surface it is absolutely pure, ant it has only to cool to be ready for sale By chemical assays it is proved to b | over 99 per cent pure sulphur, and 1t sold on the guarantee that it is 991a pc
 cent pure.
 Now come with me and let us look a
 the huge blocks of sulphur which stan
 out against the blue sky. There are
 half dozen waiting for the steamers t
 come and take them away and other
 are rising by the flow of the wells. Her
 is one that covers more than acre an
 is more than 40 feet high. It is a might
 cube of light yellow as clean as a ca
 nary bird fresh from it's bath It has tn l cubic contents, I should judge, of hal dozen large flats. Nearby it is anothe
 which is 200 feet wide by 300 feet Ion
 and as high as four-story house l
 contains almost two and a half millio
 cubic feet and it weighs, I am tol'
 about 100000 tons
 There is a railroad track running | the second block I have described, ar
 one section of it has been blasted dow
 with dynamite so that the sulphur ma
 be broken into such shape that it ca
 be put on the cars. They are loading ca
 now The yellow rock is picked up
 clamshen bucket attached to the e1
 of a crane worked by an engine. IT , bucket takes two tons at bite, and u ] steam crane swings it around and dro , | it onto the cars. The car is loaded In