gQ DEPOSITS OF PHOSPHATE OF LIME. [bull. 46. 
cannot be classified with mineral phosphates. They may be treated as 
amorphous nodular phosphates, phosphatic limestone beds, guanos, and 
bone beds. 
AMORPHOUS NODULAR PHOSPHATES. 
This subdivision comprises the phosphate deposits of South Caro- 
lina, North Carolina, Alabama, Martha's Vineyard, some of the Florida 
deposits, the deposits of North Wales, England, Belgium, northern cen- 
tral and eastern France, and Eussia. They generally consist of calca- 
reous matter, more or less completely phosphatized, and occur either as 
loose nodules in a matrix of variable composition, or as a conglomer- 
ate in which the pebbles are phosphate of lime and the matrix is of a 
calcareous, phosphatic, siliceous, or ferruginous nature. They are the 
most important, commercially, of all the phosphate deposits. About 
600,000 to 700,000 tons are yearly mined, of which, in 1884, 437,000 tons 
came from South Carolina and the rest mostly from England, France, 
and Belgium. On the other hand, the total output of all the apatite 
mines in America aud Europe in the best years has not exceeded 50,000 
tons. 
AMORPHOUS NODULAR PHOSPHATES OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
The nature of the phosphate beds of South Carolina was recognized 
by Prof. C. II. Shepard, sr., before 1860, but the nodules were not 
put to any practical use until, in 1867-'68, Prof. F. S. Holmes and Drs. 
Pratt and St. Julien Ravenel, after showing by numerous analyses 
their richness in phosphate of lime, urged the formation of a company 
for mining these valuable deposits. Through the energy of Professor 
Holmes and Mr. G. T. Lewis, of Philadelphia, the first company for 
mining phosphate in South Carolina was organized in 1868. It was 
known as the Charleston Phosphate Mining and Manufacturing Com- 
pany. Since that year no less than fifteen large mining establishments 
have been started in South Carolina, of which some of the more impor- 
tant are the Bradley, Piuckney, and Bolton, in Berkeley County, and 
the Coosaw and Oak Point properties, in Beaufort County. 
Nodular phosphatic deposits are found at intervals all along the At- 
lantic Coast of the United States, from North Carolina down to the 
southern extremity of Florida, but the richest beds occur in South Car- 
olina, in a strip of country running from Broad River 60 miles along 
the coast in a northeast direction. The belt has a width of from ten 
to twenty miles. The phosphate does not occur continuously over this 
region, but in patches, sometimes having an area of many square miles 
and again only covering a few acres. In this whole area of more 
than nine hundred square miles, the hills rarely rise to a height of over 
ten to fifteen feet above high-water level, and the country is cut up into 
islands and peninsulas by the numerous tide- water inlets and creeks. 
The Tertiary deposits form a fringe along the Atlantic Coast and the 
Gulf of Mexico from New Jersey to Texas, but are best developed in the 
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