THE AMERICAN PHOSPHATE INDUSTRY

At the end of the 18th century the marl beds of new Jersey started to be exploited as a fertiliser for the soils of that region. Bones not used as a plant food until 1825. and the first bone mill was built in 1830. Guano from Peru was imported from 1832 but came into large usage in 1840s and 50s. but superphosphate was not manufactured until 1852. "Large quantities of buffalo bones were soon collected from the western plains for fertiliser purposes. (In Blakey,A.F., 'The Florida Phosphate Industry,' Wertheim Committee,Harvard,1973,pp.5-8; Shrader,Jay, 'Hidden Treasures:The Pebble Phosphates of the Peace River Valley of South Florida,' Bartow, Florida, Varn and Varn, 1891, p.57; Collings, Gilbeart H. 'Commercial Fertilizers: Their Sources and Use' New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co. 1955,p.2,4-6,180; Jordan, Weymouth T. 'The Peruvian Guano Gospel in the Old South,' (U.S.)Agricultural History,XXIV,October 1950,pp211-221)

 

Following the discovery in the 1830s that mineral phosphates could be mixed with sulphuric acid to produce superphosphate, a new fertilizer was found. bones and other phosphatic material.... led to searches on the continent and also in the United States. By 1851 the secretary of the British Agricultural Society, following an instruction by the council to make special enquiries on the subject of the occurrence of mineral phosphate of lime in the United States, was able to read a paper on the American deposits so far discovered. As well as those in New Jersey and New York he suspected other deposits would soon be found in other states and also in Canada.

 

Crystalline phosphate from New Jersey with up to 95 % phosphate content was imported by Messrs. Jevons, of Stamford Place, Liverpool. "One vein alone, discovered in New Jersey would supply the English market for many years." In the State of New York a great mass of the mineral phosphate had been discovered, and a shaft had already been sunk to the depth of nearly 30 feet." This vein occurred at Crown Point, near Lake Champlain, in Essex County, and the abundance of the mineral was so great as to lead to the conclusion that this mine contained an inexhaustible supply; the location was also favourable for facility of transport and ready shipment.' It was found to have up to 80% phosphate of lime, more than half that of the New Jersey deposit and, being very soft it easily pulverised and was more readily dissolved than the Jersey mineral.

 

"It can be delivered in London in the rough state, or powdered ready for use, as may be thought most desirable. By single-horse power two tons a-day may easily be ground... The price at which the Jersey phosphate was first offered for sale at Liverpool was 5l.5s. per ton; but its interest immediately ceased, in a commercial point of view, when the importers, on fallacious grounds of supply and demand, injudiciously raised the price to 7l., forgetting that there were already other forms of phosphate of lime in this country available to the English farmer. It is now fully believed by moderate and intelligent Americans that the United States phosphate can be afforded in the English market at such a price as will render it a cheap fertilizer; and, as it can easily be reduced to powder, its value cannot be doubted, provided it be treated with sulphuric acid, and thus rendered suitable as a manure to those crops for which phosphate of lime has been found by experience to be advantageous. Professor Johnston, of Durham, to whose personal visit to the United States we probably owe the attention thus paid to this mineral, occuring so abundantly in that part of the world, remarks:- "American farmers in

general have not the knowledge to appreciate the value of such a manuring substance as this, nor the ability to purchase it when manufactured into superphosphate of lime; the discovery, therefore, will be a boon, for the present,

to both countries. It will make more abundant and cheap the means of fertility which our soils require; while, by supplying as new article of traffic only saleable in Great Britain, it will form a new bond of connexion between our kindred nations."

Way,J.T. 'On American Phosphate of Lime,' Journ.Ag.Soc.vol.xii,1851,p250-51

 

Way, who was the advising chemist to the Royal Agricultural Society, went on to give more details for the British agriculturalists and manure manufacturers who were interested in foreign phosphate supplies.

 

"The American phosphate has only been recently introduced to our notice. It is described as occurring in beds of considerable thickness, and extending over a large district of country, in the states of New York and New Jersey... A mineral phosphate of this composition will be somewhat greater value as a source of phosphoric acid for superphosphate than the coprolites of the crag. I shall not, however, attempt to give a formula for its treatment by H2SO4, since it is quite likely that further experience in the working of the beds may lead to the discovery of continuous layers of a more uniform character, and less intermixed with quartz and other extraneous substances which reduce the proportion of phosphoric acid.

Way.J.T. 'On Superphosphate of Lime, its Composition, and the Method of Making and Using it.' Journ.Ag.Soc.vol.xii.1851, p221

 

Local entrepreneurs recognised that there would be a local demand and by 1852 the first superphosphate manufactory was set up. Aware of the enormous herds of buffalo out on the plains, it was not long before their bones found their way into the dens. Large bones and teeth had been found in South Carolina as early as 1795 in Biggin Swamp, near Cooper River but the first mention of them being phosphatic was in 1837 when a Professor F.S. Holmes discovered some in Ashley River. As gelatine was considered at that time to be the fertilising principle in bones, their use as fertiliser was dismissed as they only contained a small percentage of carbonate of lime. However, by 1845, Dr. E. Emmons acknowledged in an article in the American Quarterly Journal of Agriculture and Science, that,

 

'It is an object of great importance to discover bone phosphate of lime in its pure state, or even mixed with other materials in sufficient quantity to supply the wants of agriculture.'

 

Davidson,W.B.M. 'Notes on The Geological Origin of Phosphate of Lime in the United States and Canada,' Trans. Amer.Inst. Mining Engineers, XXI, New York,1893,p140)

 

Despite this it was fifteen years before the South Carolina phosphates began to be utilised as fertilisers as Otto A. Moses observed,

 

"Prof. Shepard and Col. L.M. Hatch suggested the utilization of phosphatic marls in the manufacture of commercial fertilizer, and started a factory at or near Charleston, which was soon abandoned. Remains of their compost heap were used by farmers with good effect long after the war. At the close of the war, Dr. N.S. Pratt, formerly connected with the nitre bureau of the Confederacy, visited Charleston, with the object of starting sulphuric acid chambers. About this time, Dr. St. Julian Ravenel of Charleston, who had mined marl extensively at Stoneys

Landing, on Cooper River, for the manufacture of cements, noticed the nodules, analyzed some of them, and found them to contain much phosphate of lime. He became engaged soon after in the manufacture of commercial fertilizer from foreign phosphate rocks. Then followed the discovery in August 1867, which has been of such vital importance to agriculture and the prosperity of South Carolina. Pratt and Holmes (Charleston Mining Co.,) Ravenel and Dukes (Wando Co.,) then located territory. The value of the deposits became known, other beds were discovered, and many persons and considerable capital were soon employed in developing the new industry by mining the crude rock and exporting or manufacturing it on the spot into superphosphate. Later on, the beds of many navigable streams were found to be largely paved with the substance.' (Mineral Resources of the United States for 1882,Washington D.C. ,U.S. Geological Survey, pp517-868)

 

Exports began in April 1868 of deposits from along the Ashley River, near Tenmile Hill, above Charleston. (Blakey,A.F.'The Florida Phosphate Industry,' 1973, p.12) River rock was not mined until 1870. Mineral Resources of the United States for 1914,Washington D.C. ,U.S. Geological Survey, pp42) By 1870 ships unloaded 1,400 tons on Liverpool docks, alongside 3,700 tons of Estremadura deposits and a small cargo of 140 tons of Canadian phosphates. With yields then of between 55 - 60 % phosphate of lime, they were quickly purchased by manure manufacturers. (Mark Lane Express,1870) "Mr Pitts stated that large quantities of these phosphates are being used in America, and also imported into this country for the manufacture of artifical manures." (Geol.Mag.vol.viii,1871,p235 )

 

Charles Bidwell, a Cambridgeshire surveyor with extensive knowledge of Great Britain's coprolite industry, gave a lecture on the subject to the Institute of Surveyors in 1874 in which,

 

"In conclusion, he alluded to the extensive deposits of phosphatic minerals in South Carolina, which intimately resembled some of the Cambridgeshire coprolite beds; indeed, he might say, some of the Carolina deposits could hardly be distinguished from Cambridgeshire Coprolites. There were the same fossils, of the same greenish grey appearance, and also a similar composition, in the better deposits of South Carolina. The per-centage of phosphate of lime averaged about 58 per cent., whilst that of the best Cambridgeshire beds was about 61. The South Carolina beds were very extensive indeed, spreading over hundreds of miles; but the expense of shipping to this country was too great to make it a very profitable speculation, so that many importers had given up the enterprise, and, so far as his knowledge went, there was only one firm who brought that material into the English market at the present time. (Bidwell,C. 'On Coprolites.' Inst. Surv. 1874,pp314-5 )

 

Whether any of England's eighty manure manufacturers at the time were at the Institute of Surveyors meeting is unknown but Voelcker was there and his contacts with the fertiliser industry were well known. It seems that he looked into the American deposits and the following year, in the Journal of the Agricultural Society reported that,

 

"Phosphatic nodules, similar in many respects to the coprolites of the London basin, have of late years been discovered in great abundance in the calcareous strata of the Charleston basin. Although the material which at the present time is largely imported into England under the name of South Carolina, or Charleston phosphate, was known perfectly well in 1843, and probably as early as 1795, its value remained undetected; and until within the last seven years it was regardless as worthless for all practical purposes; nor was its true chemical character known previous to that period. The first shipments that can be traced, as made with a view to bring its value and utility before the public, it appears was made on the 4th December, 1867, by Messrs. W.D. Dukes and Co. to Mr. Geo. White, New York; on the 15th December the Charleston Mining and Manufacturing Company shipped, per steamer 'Falcon,' to Geo. P. Lewis, of Philadelphia, sixteen tierces.

 

See The South Carolina Phosphate Industry for more detail.