162 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OP VITICULTURE 



that there was a large deposit of native sulphur in Calcasieu Parish, Lou- 

 isiana, at a depth of one thousand feet below the surface. But all attempts 

 to get at the deposit and bring the sulphur to the surface had failed com- 

 pletely, on account of the layers of quick sand above the deposit. Mr. Frasch 

 evolved the idea of melting the sulphur in place, by means of superheated 

 water forced down a boring, and forcing the melted sulphur to the surface, 

 through an inner tube. During the period beginning October 23, 1890, to 

 February 6, 1905, Frasch has applied for ten patents for his inventions of 

 apparatus and processes for accomplishing this result. 



"His efforts have been entirely successful. The Union Sulphur Company 

 was organized, he secured control of the sulphur deposit, set up the batteries 

 of boilers, bored the wells, built the railroad to carry the sulphur to the sea- 

 board, and the docks at Sabine Pass for the ships which deliver the sulphur 

 to the seaboard. 



"There are seven batteries of boilers, each of which runs a well. A 

 single well delivers about four hundred and fifty tons of sulphur per day. In 

 a two months' test, six wells delivered one hundred and twenty-two thousand 

 tons of sulphur, proving the capacity of the mines to exceed the entire con- 

 sumption of the world. 



"The sulphur is pumped into bins about fifty feet high constructed of 

 planks, where it congeals and forms a block of from seventy-five thousand to 

 one hundred and fifty thousand tons, over ninety-nine per cent, pure sulphur. 

 The planks are subsequently removed, the huge block is broken up by blast- 

 ing, and the sulphur is loaded directly into the cars by a scooping derrick 

 which picks up two tons at a time." 



In 1912, mining operations began on a deposit in Texas very similar to 

 the Louisiana deposit and also believed to be very large. The mine is ope- 

 rated in very much the same way and it is thought that Texas sulphur will 

 be in the future no small part of the world's output.i 



Wyoming also produces a small quantity of sulphur. The sulphur here is 

 mined in open cuts, the ore in places containing as high as 40 per cent, 

 sulphur. The material as mined, however, contains from 15 to 25 per cent. 

 "At the refining plant the sulphur bearing rock is drawn into perforated 

 steel cars which are run in groups of three into a retort. Steam is supplied 

 from two 16-foot boilers, and the liquid sulphur is drawn into wooden tanks, 

 where it is allowed to solidify. The sulphur is broken, crushed to pass 

 through a 20-mesh sieve, and sacked for shipment." 



Deposits of easily workable sulphur also exist in Utah and Nevada.i 

 Their location, however, is too remote for their products to be a factor in 

 any of the markets outside a radius of one or two hundred miles. 



Japan is an important producer and it is from this country that practi- 

 cally the whole supply of the Pacific Coast is obtained, amounting to about 

 20,000 tons annually. In many respects, the method of extracting sulphur 

 from the ore as employed in Japan is similar to the calcerone process which 

 has been used for many years in Sicily. This latter process is described in 



i "Mineral Resources of the United States, 1913," U. S. Geological Survey, 

 page 7. 



Davis, A. W., Min. Sci., August, 1913, pp. 99-102. 



Hamor, W. A., Jour. Ind. Eng. Chem., Vol. 5, No. 4, page 337. 



i Private communication. 



