1896.]
Is it Jennie ? Is it Susie?
Rita, Josephine or Nell ?
Never mind, I love her madly,
I remember that quite well.
But,—the dickens I—what her name was,
I'll be blest if I can tell I
A VALUABLE DISCOVERY.
The daily papers are announcing the fact of a valuable dis
covery of phosphate rock in Juniata county, Pa., which may
prove to be of commercial value. This deposit was recently ex
plored by Professor Ihlseng at the instigation of the Agricultural
Experiment Station of the College, which had previously been in
receipt of numerous specimens of the rock analyzing from twenty
to thirty per cent. of phosphoric acid. The deposit lies between
the Oriskany flint and the Onondaga limestone, and though
pockety may prove on further examination to be in one continuous
stratum along this crucial horizon between the Silurian and
Devonian formations. A bulletin will shortly be issued by the
Experiment Station and further investigation may be entered
upon later in the season. The phosphatic material assumes two
forms—red nodules or pebbles and white rock. This discovery
is of considerable importance since the thickness of the phosphate
bearing mass seems to reach several feet and the contents are rich
enough in the equivalent of bone phosphate to warrant extraction
and shipment a moderate distance. Again, the geologic and
topographic features of several of the central counties of our
State are equally favorable for the occurrence of similar super
ficial deposits. If the entire of the r, roo miles of Oriskany out
crop in this State is phosphate bearing to a commercial degree then
will a very important industry have been established. At present,
three-fourths of the world's consumption of mineral manure comes
from the Southern States, though it is of a higher grade than any
yet discovered in Juniata county; nevertheless the fertilizing power
of the latter and the accessibility of the deposit will enable the
local producers to compete with the former in Pennsylvania at the
present prices. The prospect is, however, as eccentric as is the
general run of such deposits. Its origin is doubtless the same as
that of similar ablation products and is the result of a weathering
process wherin acidulated meteoric waters having dissolved the
earthy phospate from one rich stratum deposited it in another
rock below through which they had percolated by a mutual
chemical reaction with a more soluble constituent of the latter
rock. The phosphatic pebble or nodules have been saturated by
the solution.
A Valuable Discovery.
—Columbia Spec/atop