Evening star., 1924-04-06
AMERICA GREATEST
SULPHUR PRODUCER
Rich Deposits on Gulf Enable
q. S. to Conquer Trade
of World.

| The United States is the worlds
greatest consumer of sulphur. Sci
entists maintain that, in the twentieth
century, nations consumption of
sulphur is true measure. of progress
( in civilization. Sulphur figures in
practically every important manufac-
turing progress.
Not only does the United States
consume more sulphur than any
other nation; it has become since the
war the outstanding producer of sui
Iphur," says bulletin from the Ma
tional Geographic Society. Back OF
this rise to pre-eminence," continues
the bulletin, lis world drama be-
tween machinery and muscle, in which
the United States and Sicily played
! the leading roles.
The United States. armed with
steam pipes, won. Sicily, actually
starving, was about to give up when
the American sulphur producers made
an agreement to let Sicily serve the
entire Italian market and ship a Ger
tain amount to other countries. II
was an echo of the industrial revolu-
tion of the eighteenth century when
machines began 10 do mems work.
sicily in certain localities still
mines sulphur as IT was mined hum
dredS OF years ago; even as the AztecS
Hllitcu sOlu anu SILVER DS ldDoElouS4S
carrying ore up in baskets. in some
places the old smelling process is in
use. This consists of erecting a pile
lof sulphur, igniting it and letting the
sulphur's own heat melt the ore. Only
| SO per cent of the mineral is recovered
by this crude process and the product
is impure. Better mines have cones
| in which the sulphur is melted, and
! in some cases it is taken off in a yola
| tile form, cooled to liquid and then
rn ord artyin
Driven by competition SICilianS
used children in the mines Child
labor presented itself in It's most nor
rible aspects as children of seven and
in i'll made mines. Many were per-
manently deformed by the burdens.
Gases engendered by sulphur COM
pounds make the mines unusually
dangerous.
sulphur is found in paying guam
titles in many parts of the United
States, but the richest deposits were
discovered in Louisiana and Texas.
near the coast. Here thousands of
dollars and many lives were lost in
wrestling sulphur from nature. Quick
| sand, the great enemy of miners,
was always on the job until finally
necessity mothered invention. Frasch,
a mining engineer, had an idea which
| revolutionized the sulphur industry
| over a known sulphur dome
| 1000 feet in diameter. derrick, look
| ing for all the world liks an oil der
| rick, was erected and a shaft forced
| down 1000 feet TO the sulphur. Three
| pipes were put down the shaft and in
| one superheated water under pressure
| was sent to do mans work. Sulphur
melts at 240 degrees fahrenheit, so
| it dissolved in the water Hot air
under compression was forced down
| a second pipe, and soon hot water
| with liquefied sulphur came spoutins
| up the third pipe. The stream from
| a sulphur we'll is directed into bins
where the water is taken off leaving
| the mineral generally more than 80
| per cent pure. Steam shovels load it
| direct to freight cars Economies of
| this process exclude the competition
| of cheapest Sicilian labor. The United
| States now produces 100000 tons
annually, almost nine times as much
] as Sicily mines.
"If the world had known that a
nation could be judged by its sui
| phur, England might have realized
| at once the American colonies impor-
| tance. The first ore shipment ever
| made from the United States was
| sulphur When Capt. John Smith
| established the Jamestown settlement
| in 1907, the colonists spent more
i time hunting gold than planting
| crops Ships starting back for Eng
| land filled their holds with what We
now call fools gold The precious
, yellow mineral the colonists unearth-
| ed was sulphur; they sent pyrites
! back to England"