Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1895 — HUNTING FOR MONAZITE. [ARTICLE]

HUNTING FOR MONAZITE.

A New Industry In the Piedmont Section of North Carolina The enthusiasm with which the search for monazite is now being prosecuted in the Piece tout section of North and South Carolina is something remarkable. Men, women and children talk about it, dream about it, search for it, and would perhaps eat it if it could be prepared so that it would be palatable. For 200 years tho planters on the coast stumbled over phosphate rock, which had been brought to the surface, and considered it of no value. Finally, after the late war, a man of scientific turn of mind began to investigate this rock, and as a result an industry has sprung up that now amounts to millions of dollars annually. In like manner gold miners year after year in their search for gold along the streams of this Piedmont section have been finding in their pans a heavy yellowish sand, which they cast aside as worthless. This has all been completely reversed in the last twenty months, and nowadays a prospector will cast aside fair specimens of gold while prosecuting his search for monazite. To obtain monazite from the hundred little streams that are found in the monazite belt the prospector sets out provided with shovel and pan. With his shovel he scoops out a hole in the bed of the stream or near by it. He goes through the alluvial deposit until he strikes a whitish sand and gravel Of this he takes a panful and washes it out, carefully examining quantity and quality. After prospecting in several different places he is able to decide whether the “branch,” as these small streams are called in the South, is worth working. If it promises well a trial is made. The top soil is stripped oft from a small area until the monazite stratum is reached. That sand is taken out and carefully washed, and if the results are satisfactory then work is begun.

Contractors do most of the mining, taking leases and paying a royalty of from one-seventh to one-fifth. Occasionally the monazite privilege is bought straight out, and in some instances S2OO an acre has been paid. Sometimes, however, the owners work their own lands. Common, unskilled laborers are smployed to do the work. “Strippers” are the hands who clear away the top soil, removing all timber growing thereon. The gravel gang comes next. They carefully lift out all of the monazite sand and turn it over to the washers, who get out all gravel, silver and clay, leaving u mixture of heavy material behind. This goes through a second washing, and the material left is marketable monazite. The washing Is done in a wooden trough from 12 !>o 18 feet in length, 12 inches wide and 12 deep. There is a cast iron perforated plate at the upper end of the box, through which the monazite drops, while the lighter stuff and clay Hoat away. A stream of water flows through the box. Expert washers receive $1 a day, but there are plenty of men who do this work fairly well and are anxious to work at 05 cents per day. Overseers and timekeepers receive $1.50. This is considered fair wages down South, where there is little demand for day labor now.

The sand is about as current as gold dust, six cents a pound being the average price. It is estimated that a group of well managed hands will make twice their daily wages. Letters of inquiry come from all countries seeking information about monazite, and, judging by the number and character of these received by the geological survey from various European countries, the Industry and the amount of money brought Into this Piedmont section for monazite this year, will hardly amount to less than SIOO,OOO. Monazite has been found in small quantities in Russia, Norway, Bohemia, and in gold washings in Brazil and in the mica veins at Quebec, but nowhere has it been found in such enormous quanties as in this bed. A Gloucester, N. J., company is the only concern manufacturing monazite in this country. The value of sand depends upon the rare metal, thorium, which it contains, which is separated from the associated material by very complicated chemical processes, which are kept secret from everyone except those who manipulate the operations. It is then used in the manufacture of incandescent gas burners of different forms. The finding of monazite is the best thing that has ever occurred for the poorer people of the section in which it is found. Hundreds of day laborers are now feeding their families with the money made in this industry.