MINERAL INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES- — SULPHUR. 5 
as through a growing application in the industrial arts, both in the 
elemental condition and in the form of various compounds including 
sulphuric acid. 
Before the beginning of the twentieth century, about 95 per 
cent of the world’s supply of sulphur came from extensive deposits 
in the island of Sicily, where cheap labor and accessible occurrence 
early led to practically a world monopoly. But the wasteful mining 
methods employed in most of the Sicilian mines, and the slowness 
with which these methods were modernized, rendered the industry 
unfit for the vigorous competition that came as a result of an in- 
genious and highly efficient method of working large deposits in 
Louisiana and Texas, first successfully applied in Louisiana in 1903. 
In consequence, the United States, which once was Sicily’s largest 
customer, not only now receives no sulphur from that source, but has 
entered the European market as a growing competitor; and the small 
imports coming to the Pacific coast from Japan need no longer be 
regarded as significant, now that the Panama Canal affords water 
transportation from Gulf ports. The position of the United States 
from 1900 to the present in regard to imports, production, and ex- 
ports of sulphur is shown graphically in figure 1. 
CHART SHOWING THE DEVELOPMENT OP THE SULPHUR INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED STATES 
FROM 1900 TO 1814. LATER FIGURES ARE NOT AVAILABLE FOR SPECIFIC USE. NOTE THE 
FALLING OFF OF IMPORTS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF EXPORTS. THE OUTPUT OF THE 
TWO GULF DEPOSITS HAS INCREASED APPRECIABLY DURING THE WAR. 
Sulphur deposits of potential importance occur in many localities 
in the United States, including occurrences that have been worked 
in a small way in Utah, Wyoming, and other western States; but 
the domestic situation is so dominated by the large reserves along 
the Gulf coast and especially by the efficiency to which their opera- 
tion lends itself, that further consideration of the scattered sources 
would place undue emphasis on their present meaning. The im- 
