92 JAMES MUSPRATT 



spent in the companionship of literary, 

 artistic, and scientific men. During his 

 business years, fights with farmers were not 

 his only worries. In partnership with his 

 friend, Mr. Tennant, of Glasgow, he bought 

 some sulphur mines in Sicily. These 

 English adventurers awakened the jealousy 

 of the Neapolitans, and a duty of ^4 per ton 

 was placed on all sulphur exported to 

 England. This action being contrary to 

 treaty rights, a protest was made, supported 

 by the presence of the British fleet ; the 

 King of Naples listened to the representa- 

 tions thus made to him, but instead of taking 

 off the duty he had imposed on the English 

 export, he placed a duty upon all exports of 

 sulphur to any country. The consequence 

 was, ingenuity set to work to make sulphuric 

 acid from the mineral sulphides of iron and 

 copper instead of from brimstone, and the 

 pyrites mines of Wales and Ireland, the 

 latter especially, displaced the sulphur mines 

 of Sicily. 



When Liebig was making his researches 

 and working out his theories in Agricultural 

 Chemistry, and when he thought he had 

 discovered the secret of the refertilization of 

 the soil, the principal thing being to restore 



