26 TJie Phosphates of America. 



about the mode of their occurrence, how they are mined, handled, 

 prepared for the market, and what they cost. All this informa- 

 tion we shall endeavor to convey in as brief a manner as may be 

 consistent with lucidity, and we shall add to it a practical descrip- 

 tion of the manufacture of sulphuric acid, superphosphates and 

 "high grade supers," and shall give a general outline of those 

 methods of analyses shown by our long and varied experience to 

 be best suited to each class of product. 



At the present time there is a great and regrettable divergency 

 in the results of phosphate analyses made by different chemists. 

 To the uninitiated this is an unaccountable fact, to be explained 

 only by a very excusable and popular conclusion, that analytical 

 chemistry is not a reliable or exact science, and that it cannot pro- 

 duce in practice what it expresses by equation. Why, it is asked, 

 should the chemist in the South who is perfectly conscientious 

 and who has no interest to deceive differ materially in his find- 

 ings from a chemist equally but no more honest and trustworthy 

 working at the East or North? This is a consistent question, and 

 it demands a prompt solution. 



Nothing could cast a greater aspersion on the highest of profes- 

 sions than this state of affairs, and yet nothing on earth could be 

 more easily and perfectly remedied. All that is necessary is for chem- 

 ists to come together and agree upon certain methods, and to invite 

 purchasers and sellers of phosphates and manures to regulate their 

 settlements on a prescribed basis. In this manner all divergency 

 of results should disappear, and, all other conditions being equal, 

 any further discrepancies would be attributable only to incompe- 

 tency or bad faith. The hand, of course, is not always steady, nor 

 is the eye always accurate, and while we are liable to physical 

 defects and weaknesses, we shall never be free from mistakes ; but 

 it is nevertheless a fact which has forced itself upon all thinking 

 men, that uniformity in manipulation is the prime factor in the 

 attainment of uniform results, and nowhere is such uniformity a 

 sine qua non as in the laboratory. 



