104 JMASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



phosphate of lime, &c. These lands have been sold for about 

 ten dollars per acre, and many thousand acres are now held by 

 Northern capitalists and manufacturers, Mr. Bradley, of our own 

 State, of phosphate fame, owning several thousand acres, from 

 which he draws his supply of bone for his immense manufac- 

 tory. But these dry diggings, as they are called, are, and 

 must of necessity be attended with a gi-eat amount of manual 

 labor, in removing the superincumbent earth, in picking and 

 lifting and carting and washing and storing for transporta- 

 tion, requiring to bo handled and re-handled many times, and 

 every time adding to the cost of mining. 



It was known that the river-beds were covered with this 

 material, and the negro, having no great affection for the 

 pick and shovel, soon took to fishing for the rock on his own 

 hook, and with his boat and rude kind of tongs or grapnels, 

 would, in a short time, take enough to supply his simple 

 wants. This led to the formation of the "River and Marine 

 Mining Company," a corporation chartered by the legislature 

 with the exclusive right to take rock from beneath the waters 

 of South Carolina for twenty years, giving a royalty to the 

 State of one dollar per ton. Beginning with the negro's sim- 

 ple tongs this company has expended many thousand dollars 

 in experiments, until they have in successful operation ma- 

 chinery worked by steam, capable of raising from the river- 

 bed and washing several hundred tons a day. I visited the 

 establishment on Stono River, from which I gathered most of 

 my specimens, and which I will more particularly describe. 

 It is situated about fifteen miles from Charleston, by a widen- 

 ing creek or bayou, to and from which a steam-tug, owned 

 by the company, is constantly plying, carrying stores of coal 

 and other supplies, and returning with the rock to the wharf 

 to be shii^ped as ordered. The Stono River may be at this 

 point a mile wide with an average depth of ten to fifteen feet. 

 The establishment consists of four flat-boats, capable of carry- 

 ing one hundred tons each, lashed side by side, and so moored 

 as that their position may be easily changed. The first boat 

 on the right carries the coal to supply the engines, and when 

 exhausted will be changed to the left side to receive the rock. 

 The second boat carries a steam-engine and machinery to 

 operate a dredge or steam-shovel capable of scraping from the 



