PHOSPHATE DEPOSITS. 
125 
phosphatic nodules, of all forms and sizes, many of which show 
casts of the interior of bivalve shells, which have perished, leav- 
ing only this reminder of their former presence. 
It is interesting to see the great steam scoops at work remov- 
ing the covering of the phosphate beds and transferring it to the 
adjoining land, first the peat and then the underlying clay and 
sand ; then, when the phosphate bed is uncovered, the negro 
laborers go to work, with pick and shovel, to loosen up the 
masses of phosphate and bones and transfer them to great buckets 
or cages that are lowered into the trench by a steam crane. 
When the bucket is filled,* the steam crane lifts it, swings it over 
to a train of cars and dumps it, filling car after car until the train 
load is completed. Then the cars are carried off by a locomotive 
to the washing house at the side of the river, where we had 
landed. Here the cars are taken up singly along a long incline 
to the top of the washing house, where the sludge and waste is 
separated and the lumps of phosphate purified. This is done by 
a revolving cylinder, with the further end raised, and having a 
spiral ridge upon it that carries the phosphate continually forward. 
The phosphate falls upon this cylinder through a hopper from 
the car, and with a heavy stream of water the impurities are 
washed out. After being thus washed, the phosphate nodules 
are carried to a calcining house, where they are dried and 
calcined by means of wood fires built under them ; after which 
they are ready for shipment to the phosphate factory, where they 
are ground, treated with chemicals, and mixed with other 
fertilizers and put on the market as superphosphates, and pre- 
parations for particular crops. 
About a week after this visit to the Stono River, when on our 
way up the Ashley River to Magnolia Gardens, we passed two 
phosphate dredges at work dredging phosphate from the bed 
of the Ashley River. One of these dredges was built on the 
principle of the steam dredges that are at work in the harbor of 
St. John. The scoop, after lifting the charge from the river bed, 
discharged it into a large hopper on the side of the dredge, where 
a heavy current of water washed away the mud ; the material 
