562 Transactions of tee American Institute. 



the mines of Illinois is now being mined at a depth of 500 feet, and 

 sold at the mouth of the shaft at three dollars per ton. 



The average cost of transportation of sulphur from Sicily to the 

 United States is about seven dollars per ton, and allowing the cost of 

 raising the sulphur of Louisiana to the surface to amount to five dol- 

 lars per ton, the total cost of placing it in any market, either foreign 

 or domestic, could not therefore exceed twelve dollars per ton. It is 

 plain to be seen that the State of Louisiana may furnish the markets 

 of the world at a price so low as to suppress its production elsewhere 

 and yet receive a vast profit. The sulphur, purer than that of com- 

 merce and in untold abundance, exists in the State of Louisiana, and 

 the world demands it for the arts and agriculture. 



The report of Mr. Granet, chief engineer of the Calcasieu Sulphur 

 and Mining Company, states that toward the end of October last the 

 Calcasieu Sulphur and Mining Company undertook to drill an artesian 

 well, in order to ascertain the location, the bearings and the true rich- 

 ness of a layer of sulphur accidentally discovered scarcely two years 

 ago whilst boring for a petroleum deposit. 



The first boring had just gone through a petroleum deposit contain- 

 ing too little oil to be worked profitably. It was therefore being con- 

 tinued, in the hope of finding, at a greater depth, a large quantity of 

 petroleum, when, at the depth of 443 feet below the surface, a layer of 

 sulphur 108 feet in thickness was reached. 



Unfortunately, the parties who were in charge of the boring opera- 

 tions, being unacquainted with the full value of the precious metalloid 

 which offered itself to them, went through it entirely without paying 

 much attention to the discovery they had just made, and contenting 

 themselves with designating rather loosely the layer they had found 

 as " pure crystalline sulphur." They continued to bore still deeper 

 in search of the petroleum deposit they hoped to obtain lower down, 

 when, in fact, they had long since gone through it. 



The sulphur layer was discovered, its thickness was approximately 

 ascertained, but its real richness was completely unknown. For this 

 reason the Calcasieu Sulphur and Mining Company, established prin- 

 cipally for the purpose of extracting the sulphur discovered, resolved, 

 before undertaking to sink a large extracting well, to explore the entire 

 layer by means of a new boring, and to ascertain the exact value in 

 sulphur of the mineral constituting the sulphur bed. 



A vertical well struck the sulphur bed at a depth of 428 feet, and 

 went through its entire thickness of 112 feet. 



