The Phosphates of America. 33 



larity. The run of the apatite is a capricious one, and was found 

 to shift about from side to side and take the place of other rocks 

 in a manner that baffled all calculations. We may, perhaps, better 

 convey our meaning if we liken its occurrence to a long string of 

 sausages, of very irregular shape and divided by very irregular 

 lengths of skin, say, for instance, thus : 



These pockets were of course worked out as they occurred, 

 with the result that the interior of the shaft now presents the ap- 

 pearance of a series of immense caverns alternating with narrow 

 passages or tunnels. So far as it was possible to judge from the 

 present appearance of the shaft and of the dumps by which it is 

 surrounded, we estimated the amount of rock material already re- 

 moved from it at about 160,000 tons and the apatite at about 

 twelve per cent, of that total. 



At a distance of 100 feet further along the belt we reach 

 The Shaft No. 2, a reproduction in the main of the No. 1 

 shaft already described. It has been carried down on the dip of the 

 vein at an angle of 50 to 55 S. with a tramway which hugs the 

 foot-wall. The width and height of the shaft range from 50 

 to 120 feet wide and from 16 to 75 feet high, all in solid vein 

 matter between well-defined walls of granitic gneiss, with phos- 

 phate overhead and underfoot. The apatite in the vein has fre- 

 quently developed into large bonanza chambers or pockets, and 

 there is every promise of a continuation of this phenomenon as 



