The Phosphates of America. 47 



removing the soil above the rocks they were seen in a regular 

 stratum about one foot thick imbedded in clay, and seemed to be 

 identically the same as those found scattered on the surface of ad- 

 joining land, all of them bearing impressions of shells and having 

 similar cavities and holes filled with clay. It was on the 23d or 24th 

 of February, 1844, while engaged in the removal of the upper beds 

 covering the marl, that the laborers discovered several stone arrow- 

 heads and one stone hatchet. Not long after finding these relics of 

 human workmanship, and while engaged in his usual visits to the 

 Ashley marl-bed, Prof. Holmes found a bone projecting from the 

 bluff immediately in contact with the surface of the stony stratum 

 (the phosphate rocks); he pulled it out and beheld a human bone ! 

 Without hesitation he condemned it as an " accidental occupant " 

 of quarters to which it had no right, geologically, and so threw 

 it into the river. A year after, a lower jaw-bone with teeth wa& 

 taken from the same bed. Subsequent events and discoveries show 

 conclusively that the first-described bone was in " place," and that 

 the beds of the post-Pliocene, not only on the Ashley River, but in 

 France, Switzerland and other European countries, contain bones- 

 associated with the remains of extinct animals and relics of human 

 workmanship. 



The necessary lime or calcareous earth for manufacturing salt- 

 petre on the west bank of the Ashley River during the Confederate 

 war was obtained by sinking pits into the Eocene marl-bed. 



Upon the removal of a few feet of the upper layers the workmen 

 discovered in one pit a number of oddly-shaped nodules, resem- 

 bling somewhat the marl-stones (phosphate rock) found in the 

 stratum above the marl, but more cylindrical in form and not 

 perforated, and having their exterior polished, as though each in- 

 dividual specimen had received a coat of varnish ; they appeared 

 to have been deposited in a large corner or pocket in the marl-bed. 

 Upon submitting these samples to analyses their true value was 

 revealed and South Carolina thereafter became a centre of attrac- 

 tion. 



It was not until about 1867, however, that a mining company 

 could be organized to test the practicability of working the phos- 

 phate on a commercial scale, but this company was no sooner 

 started than it became a success, and the industry has since then 

 progressed with such leaps and bounds that it has raised the status 

 of South Carolina to that of the most productive phosphate field 

 yet known to industry. 



