Polytechnic Association. 563 



The sulphur appears in compact and amorphous masses, of a pale 

 color, interspersed here and there with yellow crystals. 



It is surrounded by a calcareous crystalline matrix, of a whitish color 

 and rather considerable hardness, but which, nevertheless, is easily 

 reduced to powder under the stroke of the hammer. 



The well it will be necessary to sink, in order to reach it through 

 the various strata which underlie it, can be constructed without any 

 really serious difficulty. 



The means of transportation are excellent, either by the Chatta- 

 nooga railroad, which will pass within half a mile of the mine, and to 

 which an auxiliary branch could be made, or by the Calcasieu river, 

 which is navigable and flows at a distance of five miles from the 

 works. 



As for the working of the sulphur bed, it will not present the 

 slightest difficulty, for the rock, without being too hard to disintegrate, 

 is yet sufficiently compact and resisting to sustain, without any wooden 

 scaffolding or coating, all the galleries to be constructed. 



In Sicily, pre-eminently a sulphur producing country, the art of 

 working mines is yet in its infancy. 



The sulphur strata are met at average depths of 120 to 150 feet 

 below the surface, and they are reached by means of very sloping gal- 

 leries, supplied through their whole length with steps dug in the soil 

 itself. 



All the mineral extracted by the miners is brought up to light 

 by children from twelve to sixteen years. They take upon their 

 shoulders one or two stones, which they bring up with much trouble 

 to the surface, after overcoming untold obstacles in ascending these 

 steps, always roughly made and partly crumbling. Having reached 

 daylight, they lay down their load, and at once descend again to the 

 bottom of the mine to repeat the same operation. 



The mode of manipulating the mineral is still worse ; it is barbar- 

 ous and even absurd. 



The proportion of sulphur in the mineral is from twenty to thirty 

 per cent, or an average of twenty-five per cent. 



Of this twenty-five per cent, the Sicilians scarcely extract from ten 

 to fourteen per cent of sulphur ; for owing to the lack of fuel, they 

 are compelled to use the sulphur itself to operate the melting ; in 

 other words, to burn one-half in order to melt the other half, obtain- 

 ing thereby a very impure product, which has to be manipulated again 

 and refined before being delivered for consumption. 



The means of transportation of sulphur in the interior of Sicily are 



