DISCOVERY OF A BED OF PHOSPHATE OF LIME, AT HURDSTOWN, NEW JERSEY. 
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DISCOVERY OF A BED OF PHOSPHATE OF LIME 
AT HURDSTOWN, NEW JERSEY. 
1\am happy to inform you that your prediction 
is verified, and that your hope in regard to the 
discovery of other veins of phosphate of lime 
in this country, is realised. In the course of the 
past summer, Dr. C. T. Jackson and Mr. Fran¬ 
cis Alger, of Boston, discovered a valuable and 
extensive deposit of massive phosphorite, (phos¬ 
phate of lime,) in the town of Hurdstown,Mor¬ 
ris county, New Jersey, and but a few miles 
from the Morris Canal. The mineral is perfectly 
pure, and is composed of 54 per cent, of lime, 
and 46 of phosphoric acid. 
Last August, Mr. Alger forwarded to me a 
sample of 15 or 20 pounds of this phosphate, 
finely ground, with a request that I would expe¬ 
riment with it on my growing crops, but the 
lateness of the season prevented its application. 
In his letter to me,he said there was no trouble 
in making it into a perfectly fine powder, if 
that was thought best. The sample I received 
was from the size of coarse shot to fine flour, 
and of a brownish color. A portion of it, I treated 
with sulphuric acid, and then it became white, 
like the water-slaked white lime of Maine. No 
doubt, by the addition of the acid, it was con¬ 
verted into a bi-phosphate of lime, a much more 
soluble salt. 
A few days since, I received a letter from 
Mr. Alger, in which he writes, that he has suc¬ 
ceeded in getting a quantity of his phosphor¬ 
ite ground, and that he had sent 10 tons to Eng¬ 
land, whence he had received propositions for 
more, both for the purpose of manure, and for 
making, (when combined with other materials,) 
porcelain ware, and hopes the quantity may 
prove sufficient to meet the demands of both 
countries. In order to have its merits tested for 
manuring purposes, he will have the ground 
mineral put up in casks of 100 lbs. each. I 
have as yet no information as to the price it can 
be supplied to farmers. In its massive state, it 
is harder and heavier than carbonate of lime, its 
specific gravity being about three times that of 
water; but as there is no difficulty in making 
it into a perfectly fine powder, I presume it may 
be suplied to them at a cheap rate. Of its in¬ 
trinsic value to the farmer for spreading upon 
his old pasture grounds, his orchards, and for 
the wheat and turnip crops, I think there can be 
but one opinion in the mind of any one who is 
at all familiar with English farming and Eng¬ 
lish agricultural publications. 
Bones are a combination of phosphoric acid 
and lime, but in less proportions than in the 
phosphorite. Now much, very much, of the 
fertilising properties of bone manure is due to 
the phosphoric acid and lime. Millions of dol¬ 
lars are annually expended by the British farm- 
mers in the purchase of bone manure. Every 
year, there are vast importations into England 
of animal, and in many instances, of human 
bones, to be applied to the soil for raising food 
for that densely-populated island. 
From official returns, it appears there were 
imported into England from July 1st, 1844, to 
July 1st, 1845, 137,300 tons of guano. The cost 
price to the farmers of this manure was estima¬ 
ted at £1,247,600, or over $6,230,000, spent by 
British farmers in one year for a manure which 
was unknown in English agriculture five years 
previous to that time. A very large per-centage 
of the fertilising principle of guano is due to 
the phosphates it contains, derived from the 
finely-comminuted and digested bones of the 
fish upon which the birds subsisted. So far, 
then, as the phosphates contained in the guano 
existed, it served as a substitute for bone man¬ 
ure—notwithstanding the vast importation of 
the phosphates in the guano—bone manure was 
30 per cent, dearer during 1844 and ’45 than in 
the previous year ; and I presume there are 
thousands of farmers in the United States who 
never even yet have seen, heard, nor read of 
bone dust as a manure. 
There seems to have been some difference of 
opinion among prominent scientific writers on 
agriculture, as to what constituted the most val¬ 
uable fertilising principles of bone manure. 
One class have asserted that it was wholly due 
to the inorganic part, the acid and lime, while 
others attribute nearly, or quite as much value 
to the organic part, the gelatine, oil, &c., of the 
bones; but plain common sense teaches us, and 
this backed up, too, by numerous well-attested 
facts, that there are soils upon which both the 
gelatine and the phosphate of lime of the bone 
manure are useful. On other soils, burned 
bones, and the mineral phosphate produce equal¬ 
ly good results with the unburned or fresh bones; 
and there are other soils, where neither the or¬ 
ganic nor inorganic portions of the bone ma¬ 
nure produce any visible good effects, however 
large the quantity applied. 
It has been said that mineral phosphate of 
lime existed in some parts of Spain in great 
abundance, and it was thought it might be ob¬ 
tained there in large quantities, so as partially 
to supply the English farmers with a substitute 
for bone manure. In 1843, Dr. Daubeny, Pro¬ 
fessor of Chemistry at Oxford, volunteered to 
explore the localities in the country where it 
was said to be so abundant. The phosphorite, 
