The Phosphates of America. 63 



CHAPTER Y. 



THE PHOSPHATE DEPOSITS OF FLORIDA. 



THE existence of nodular amorphous phosphate deposits in 

 Florida is not a matter of recent discovery, for they had been 

 found in various directions many years ago, but were never believed 

 to be of sufficient importance either in quantity or quality to merit 

 the serious attention of capitalists. Like many other of our natural 

 resources, therefore, they remained long dormant and unthought 

 of. 



The first tentative mining operations were commenced in the 

 year 1888 by The Arcadia Phosphate Company, on a very small 

 scale, in Peace River, and they met with such marked encourage- 

 ment that many who had hitherto remained sceptically watching 

 their efforts came into the same field, and the year 1889 saw the 

 Peace River Phosphate Company and the De Soto Phosphate Com* 

 pany dredging the river with an expensive modern plant. 



The unostentatious and cautious manner in which these corpo- 

 rations conducted their business for some time prevented their 

 movements and successes from being noised abroad, but when the 

 attention of those in the immediate locality could no longer be 

 diverted from the facts, universal interest was aroused and pros- 

 pectors went to work in all parts of the State. Discovery now fol- 

 lowed discovery in rapid succession, and each new field was claimed 

 to be of more value and importance than its predecessor. The 

 land-owners became excited ; wealth " beyond the dreams of ava- 

 rice " danced before their eyes and reposed under their feet. The 

 local newspapers started a " boom " and all Florida was in the 

 throep of a wildly exaggerated and feverishly speculative phosphate 

 fever. Land? which heretofore were valued at from $1.50 to $3 

 per acre readily changed hands at $150 to $200 per acre, and many 

 a " cracker homesteader " who went to bed a poor man woke up in 

 the morning to find himself a capitalist. 



While, however, it is undoubtedly a very good thing to- have 

 big phosphate mines, very little use can be made of them without 

 the necessary means for their exploitation, and money is still a rare 

 commodity in the South. It hence became necessary to offer to 



