MINERAL INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES — SULPHUR. 9 
eign sources of supply. There are few other mineral industries of 
which this may be said in equal degree. The United States was en- 
abled to reach this position through the conjunction of a unique geo- 
logical occurrence, favorably located, with the development of an 
ingenious technique for making the occurrence cheaply available. 
It is not generally known how extensive the untouched beds of sul- 
phur are in the two deposits now operating; nor what resources 
exist in undeveloped and undiscovered occurrences of the same type 
in the Gulf region. There is, therefore, no available basis of fact for 
estimating the life of this sulphur supply, though the presumption 
is that it may be measured in decades, or even in longer units. With 
the exhaustion of the Gulf fields, the leaner sulphur deposits of the 
western States will be more actively drawn upon; while processes 
already under way for recovering sulphur from smelter fumes will 
undoubtedly be producing important supplies. 
A condition has arisen as a result of the World War in connection 
with the partial cutting off of supplies of Spanish pyrite, from which 
most of the domestic sulphuric acid is made, which is already affect- 
ing to some degree the sulphur situation and may eventually involve 
a significant increase in production and a diversion of this incre- 
ment into the manufacture of sulphuric acid. The lack of sufficient 
pyrite has assumed critical proportions during 1917, and this dearth 
has directed much effort to the development of the numerous, but 
small and scattered, deposits of pyrite and related sulphides in the 
Eastern States. But the development of new mineral deposits is 
ever a slow matter, even under stress, and in this instance the factor 
of uncertainty as to the duration of the war and especially in re- 
gard to the difficulties that these new-born enterprises will have to 
meet when thrown into active competition with the Spanish deposits 
at the close of the war, is not a favorable accelerator to private in- 
dustrial initiative. Should we be completely cut off from Spanish 
shipments in the near future, the Gulf sulphur deposits would of 
necessity have to be drawn upon to tide over the sulphuric acid crisis 
thus created. As a matter of fact, these deposits have in the past 
few months been contributing some sulphur to sulphuric acid plants, 
but an important application in this respect has been heretofore 
barred by a number of factors, such as the necessity for a slight 
change in manufacturing technique, the purity and relatively high 
price of the Gulf sulphur, and the general uncertainty as to the ex- 
tent of the deposits which has raised the question of the advisability 
of drawing upon limited reserves of a very pure product for a crude 
and bulk application. In regard to the last point, it may be said 
that sufficient data are not in hand for settling this matter, and it 
would therefore appear that the need is already urgent for a field de- 
