The Phosphates of America. 19 



it was not until the year 1843 that the Duke of Richmond, after 

 an exhaustive series of experiments upon the soil with both fresh 

 and degelatinized bones, came to the conclusion that they owed 

 their value not to gelatine or fatty matters, but to their large per- 

 centage of phosphoric acid! The spark thus emitted soon spread 

 into a flame, and conclusive experiments shortly after published 

 by the illustrious Boussingault set all uncertainty at rest forever 



Numerous species of vegetables were planted in burnt sand, 

 which was ascertained by analyses to contain no trace of phos- 

 phoric acid. It was, however, made rich in every other element 

 of fertility. No development of these plants took place until 

 phosphate of lime had been added to the sand, bid after this addi- 

 tion their growth became flourishing ! 



Meanwhile large workable deposits of mineral phosphates were 

 already known to exist, they having been almost simultaneously 

 discovered in their respective countries by Buckland in England 

 Berthier in France, and Holmes in America; and in the course of 

 a lecture delivered to the British Association in 1845, Professor 

 Henslow, describing the Suffolk coprolites, suggested the immense 

 value of their application to agriculture. From this time may be 

 dated the development of phosphate-mining as an industry, the 

 pursuit of which has proved so remunerative to capital and labor. 



The mode of occurrence of the best known deposits of phosphate 

 of lime may well be termed eccentric. They have been found in 

 rocks of all ages and of nearly every texture. Sometimes they are 

 very pure, sometimes their combinations are extremely variable. 

 Here they are found in veins, there in pockets, and here again in 

 stratified layers or beds in connection with fossilized debris of all 

 kinds deposited by the ancient seas. Apart from the deposits of 

 the American continent, England, France, Germany, Belgium, 

 Spain, Portugal, Norway, Russia and the West Indies, all have 

 workable and more or less productive phosphate mines, some idea 

 of which may be gathered from the following analyses: 



