SOUTH CAROLINA PHOSPHATES. 99 



found with it, and frequently and from diiferent localities took 

 to his laboratory specimens and laid them away for future ex- 

 amination, and on the tenth day of August, 1867, he was 

 pleased to submit two specimens to a careful analysis, and 

 discovered to his surprise that the first gave of phosphate of 

 lime nearly 56 parts, and the second more than 55^^ parts in 

 a hundred. Some conception of the value of this discovery 

 may be had w^hen it is known that an average cargo of fresh 

 bone will yield but little better than 40 per cent., less than 

 50 per cent., of phosphate of lime. Consequently here was an 

 almost inexhaustible supply of material, better than fresh 

 bone, for the manufacture of superphosphates. After thor- 

 oughly testing his discovery by numerous analyses, he applied 

 to Southern capitalists who could never see money in any- 

 thing but growing cotton, and was refused assistance, and 

 afterward formed a company in Philadelphia, who are en- 

 ffaofed in minino^ and manufacturing the article. 



HOW IT IS. 



The strata containing phosphate of lime range in position 

 in South Carolina from the early Miocene to the middle bed 

 of the Post-pliocene formation. It was during the early Ter- 

 tiary period that the greater portion of the shore-land of the 

 Carolinas, and south by Mobile Piver to the western limits of 

 Louisiana, was formed by deposition and subsequent exten- 

 sive, slow and uniform elevation. The Claiborne marls and 

 shell-sands of Alabama are the lowest beds of this series, 

 with the more solid buhr-stone and white limestone of the 

 Santee Eiver. The thickness of Santee beds is between six 

 hundred and seven hundred feet, and has been recognized as 

 underlying the whole neighborhood of Charleston, and con- 

 tains from two to nine per cent, of phosphate which, while it 

 constitutes a rich soil, does not justify its use or transporta- 

 tion as a marl, the value of which is to be estimated by the 

 lime-phosphate it contains. Above these, in the same group, 

 occur the gray marls of the Ashley and the Cooper Rivers. 

 These are Miocene beds, and upon them lies unconformably 

 the Post-pliocene sands and marls, one of which embraces this 

 phosphatic rock. 



It occupies what is known as the Charleston basin, with an 



