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Show T REPORT ON WEST'S f PHOSPHATE ORES Whcu the great, coal deposits or Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other oth-er states of the Applachlan region were being formed, many millions of years ago, in what the geologists tonn the Carboniferous ago, there was also being accumulated In the- Rocky Mountain region enormous mlnorul deposits de-posits which arc of. a widely dlfferont character, but which may nevertheless play an economic part In the Industrial Indus-trial development of the United States comparable even to that of coal. These aro the phosphate deposits of Wyoming, Wyo-ming, Utah, Idaho and Montana, which aro now known to contain hundrods of millions of tons of phosphate rock, constituting a most Important artificial fortlllzer. Until recently It had been generally assumed that the phosphate deposits of South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee- afforded an "inexhaustible" supply, but recent estimates by the United SLites geological survey show that at the present ra'te of increase In phosphate mining theso eastern deposits de-posits are likely to be exhausted within with-in a geDoration. The discovery of the western phosphate phos-phate beds, thorofore-, constituted a most Important find, and though the first xeconnolssance of those deposits by the geological survey showed their considerable extent, the more detailed detail-ed study and exploration, with additional addi-tional discovories made by the Biirvoy during the last thrco years, have shown that the field is probably the greatest 1n the world. Recent geologic geolo-gic study of the phosphate bearing strata indicate the probably still greater extension of the phosphate phos-phate area. Tho northernmost portion por-tion of tho beds first discovered was in Wyoming, but an outcrop of the some character and in the samo geologic geol-ogic formation was found last year In Montana, some 100 miles farther north so that survey geologists believe that workable phosphate beds may be found in many other places. The geological survey has just published pub-lished a bulletin embracing three reports re-ports on western phosphate fields, one covering a portion of the Idaho phosphate phos-phate reserve, by R. W. Richards and O R. Mansfield, another on rock plios-phato plios-phato near Melrose. Mont., by Hoyt S. Gale, and a third being a rcconnols-sanco rcconnols-sanco report on tho phosphate deposits de-posits In western Montana, by Eliot Blackwelder. The report by Messrs. Rlchnrds and Mansfield Includes a detailed description of the Idaho field, the Investigations having been made by townships, the outcrops examined, and the tonnage of high-grade phos-pliatc phos-pliatc rock estimated. The result is highly gratifying. Tonnage estimates were made of the phosphate rock in nine townships, and in no township was there found to be less than approximately ap-proximately 60,000.000 tons of high-grade high-grade phosphate rock, containing for the most part from SO to S2 per cent phosphoric acid. Phosphate rock containing con-taining 130 to C5 per cent phosphoric racld Ib generally considered high-grade. |