Eupyrchroite of Crown Point. 329 



been taken from the mine, and it is understood it is to be 

 employed in the preparation of phosphates for agricultural 

 use. This enterprise has followed the movement which Mr 

 Alger has made at my suggestion, in working the mine of 

 phosphate of lime in Hurdstown, New Jersey, and I hope it 

 will awaken the attention of mineralogists and geologists to 

 other neglected or overlooked deposits of this valuable 

 mineral, so desirable as a fertilizer, and so important as a 

 constituent of the vegetable products used for food. 



When the mode of managing this manure is generally 

 known, there will be a demand for it that all our present 

 known localities will not be able to supply, and therefore, 

 every new discovery of any extensive deposit of it, will be 

 hailed with pleasure. 



I learn that measures have been taken to export this 

 mineral to England, where it is most highly valued for agri- 

 cultural use, particularly in the preparation of the land for 

 the growth of hops.* It is also extremely valuable in the 

 preparation of the soil in other crops, all of which contain 

 phosphates in considerable proportions. It appears that the 

 exhaustion of wheat lands by incessant cropping, without 

 adequately replenishing the soil by manure, is owing to the 

 removal of phosphates from the soil. Our farmers should 

 therefore look into this matter, and remedy the evil that an 

 early want of attention to the chemical principles of agricul- 

 ture has led them into. It is hardly necessary for me to say 



* To fertilize her fields — England requires an enormous supply of animal 

 excrements, and it must, therefore, excite considerable interest to learn, that 

 she possesses beneath her soil, beds of fossil guano, strata of animal excrements, 

 in a state which will probably allow of their being employed as a manure at a 

 very small expense. The coprolithes discovered by Dr Buckland (a discovery 

 of the highest interest to geology) are these excrements; and it seems ex- 

 tremely probable that in these strata England possesses the means of supplying 

 the place of recent bones, and therefore the principal conditions of improving 

 agriculture —of restoring and exalting the fertility of her fields. 



What a curious and interesting subject for contemplation ! In the remains 

 of nn extinct animal world, England is to find the means of increasing her 

 wealth in agricultural produce, as she has already found the great support of 

 her manufacturing industry in fossil fuel, — the preserved matter of primeval 

 forests, — the remains of a vegetable world. May this expectation be realised ! 

 and may her excellent population be thus redeemed from poverty and misery ! 

 — Liehig's Letters on Chemistry, third edition, p. 524. 



