830 ANNUAL KKPuKT UF THE Off. Doc. 



years it came to be commonly applied to all classes of fertilizers 

 rather indiscriminately, especially to all those which had a dis- 

 solved bone or rock as a base, even if some nitrogen or potash 

 had been mixed with it. To overcome this difficulty the term "Plain 

 Super-phosphate" came into existence to designate a dissolved phos- 

 phate which contained only phosphoric acid. 



FLORIDA PHOSPHATES. 



These phosphate deposits are of two general classes, viz: The 

 phosphates of lime and the phosphates of iron and alumina. 



The Florida deposits, perhaps, have more commercial interest at 

 this time than those of South Carolina, as a large part of all the 

 rock fertilizers on the market are manufactured from the Florida 

 goods. There is very little difference in general composition and 

 characteristics between the deposits of these two States, except that 

 perhaps more of that from Floi'ida runs smaller in size, so that it is 

 popularly designated "Pebble Phosphates," There are both river and 

 land deposits of these pebble phosphates, as well as the land rock 

 phosphates. Florida phosphates wore discovered in the winter of 

 1881 by Francis LeBaron, a member of the United States Army Engi- 

 neer Corps, while surveying a canal route, from the headwaters of the 

 St. Johns river, in South Florida, to Charlotte Harbor. Mr. LeBaron 

 did not make the discovery public, but recognized the importance 

 and value of the "find," and confided the matter as a secret to a few 

 wealthy gentlemen. These capitalists were timid, if not skeptical, 

 and so did nothing. The public was not apprised of the existence of 

 the phosphate de])oists until 1888, and even tiien it excited but 

 little interest, for it was thought that the deposits were small 

 and confined to a limited area. 



In 1888, Mr. T. S. Moorehead, of Pennsylvania, followed up the 

 discovery of LeBaron — information of which he had obtained in some 

 w'ay — and acquired possession of some of the richest of the Peace 

 river deposits and started mining in a small way. He made the first 

 shipment of phosj)hates that ever went out of Florida in May, 1888, 

 and the total shipment for that year was only 2,000 tons. 



It is interesting to note that with the Florida deposits, as with 

 those of South Carolina, the first capital for the development was 

 ventured by people from Pennsylvania. 



TENNESSEE PHOSPHATES. 



The deposits of phosphates in Tennessee, from a commercial and 

 agricultural standpoint, to-day are next in importance to those 

 of the two States mentioned above. The deposits in Tennessee were 

 discovered in 1894. and they have been extensively explored and 



