The Phosphates of America. 143- 



selected from their every part and placed aside until, in the opinion 

 of the sampler, a sufficient quantity has been amassed to make 

 it representative. The big lumps are then all broken up with a. 

 hammer, and the entire material is spread out upon the surface of 

 a level floor, well mixed up, and passed through a crusher to 

 reduce all the lumps to a small uniform size. It is then again 

 spread upon the floor, shovelled up in a circular direction into a 

 cone-like heap and then once more spread out flat. About a 

 fourth part is next separated from the whole by taking out with a 

 spade two strips crossed at right angles, and adding a small por- 

 tion from each remaining quadrant. This fourth is made to go 

 through the same process of spreading, heaping and dividing into 

 fourths until the last operation leaves no more than about five 

 pounds, which, after thorough mixing on a table, is ground to an 

 impalpably fine powder, emptied into wide-mouthed bottles, well 

 corked, securely sealed and labelled. 



When the sampling takes place either at the port of shipment 

 or discharge, it must not be lost sight of that the result is to form 

 the basis of the price per ton which the miner is to realize for 

 his cargo. It has, therefore, to be performed in the presence 

 of trusted and reliable representatives of both seller and buyer. 

 If the loading and unloading is done by means of buckets, every 

 twentieth bucket of the whole cargo is set aside. The entire 

 sample is then passed through a stone-crusher in order to reduce 

 all the lumps to a very small size, and is then spread out upon 

 a level floor and tossed up into a heap and treated in the same 

 general way as described for the smaller sample at the mines. 

 When it has been reduced, however, in the present case, to about 

 five tons, it is taken to a mill, ground to a fineness of 80 mesh, and 

 filled into bags of 200 pounds capacity, which are securely tied 

 and placed in a row. Each one of these fifty sacks is then sampled 

 at both ends by means of a sharp-pointed augur, 18 inches long 

 and 1^ inches diameter, which is first plunged into the top and 

 then into the bottom for its entire length, being emptied of its con- 

 tents into a large tin plate by giving it a tap on the side after each 

 operation. When all the sacks have been sampled in this way, 

 the powder is thoroughly mixed by passing it through a sieve 

 twice or even three times, and is then divided into three equal parts, 

 each of which is put in a wide-mouthed glass bottle and sealed 

 with the seal of both parties to the contract. One of these sam- 

 ples is handed over to some public officer, or other party mutually 



