ARTICLE III. 
PHOSPHATE DEPOSITS OF SOUTH CAROLINA AND 
NEW BRUNSWICK. 
By G. F. Matthew, L.L D., F.R.S.C. 
Read April 6, 1909. 
Introduction. 
We have been told that “ agriculture is the basis of a nation’s 
wealth,” therefore any thing that promotes it cannot but be of 
interest to a community such as this, which, no matter how large 
its interest in commerce and manufactures may be, is after ail 
beholden to agriculture for its support and sustenance. It is 
this which has prompted me to ask you to listen this evening to 
a few words on some substances which help to give fertility to 
the soil, and wealth to the farmer, and an account of some mines 
where one of them is found. 
In the manufactured fertilizers that are offered for sale in 
your midst, there are three substances which, above all others, 
gives value to these compounds ; these are nitrogen, potash and 
phosphorus. Of the first named, there is an enormous, I may 
say an unlimited supply in the earth’s atmosphere ; but how to 
transform it from a gas, as it exists in the air, to a solid yet 
soluble substance, has exercised unsuccessfully the ingenuity of 
many a chemist; yet the solution of this puzzle is probably near 
at hand. 
However, there is a source from which this stimulating plant 
food may be obtained by every farmer. It is now well known 
that the great group of plants called Leguminosae (the Pea 
Tribe) have the power of absorbing nitrogen from the atmos- 
phere and condensing it on their roots ; hence, a field of clover 
or alfalfa, or field-peas, will draw into the soil from the atmos- 
phere a quantity of this substance greater than the largest 
