This life—this death—this world—the whirling stars?
Why do we live to-day—to-morrow endeth
Our half dreampt dream behind the twilight bars?
The Phosphates of Tennessee
By H. D. Ruhm
Mr. Ruhm is one of the pioneers in the phosphate field and his paper on this subject is the work of an expert.—Ed.
The phosphates of Tennessee occur chiefly, in fact, almost entirely, in the strata representing the Silurian and Devonian geological ages, or, more properly, in the former, and in a transition period between the two.
The Silurian age was essentially the age of shell fish, animals with their skeletons entirely on the outside of their bodies. The deposits of countless millions of these shell fish and their remains form the immense beds of limestone representing the Silurian age. The composition of these shell fish was carbonate of calcium, or “lime,” and hence our common limestones are calcium carbonate.