SULPHUR

also known as Brimstone in its crude state, is a mineral widely distributed over the earth's surface. When pure, it is a pale yellowish in color, solid but brittle, and insipid and odorless when cold. Formerly, a full ninety-five per cent of the

American, as also the bulk of the entire world's supply, came from mines in Sicily, where it is found in large quantities in gypsum beds, but to-day the principal domestic source is the State of Louisiana, where immense deposits exist about 400 feet below the surface. The supply is reached by melting it underground by superheated water and pumping it up in a liquid state. On congealing, a practically pure sulphur is obtained. More than 300,000 tons a year are secured by this process.

The domestic output is supplemented by the importation of sulphur ore or rock from Spain, Portugal, Canada and other countries, and a limited quantity of Crude Sulphur from Italy and Japan.

The ore is cooked in special furnaces and the melted sulphur is run into wooden molds to set, the product being the Crude Sulphur of commerce. Finer grades are obtained from it by distillation.

Sulphur in its various forms--sulphuric acid, sulphur-dioxide (or sulphurous acid gas) etc.--is employed in many ways-as a germicide, disinfectant and insect destroyer--in the bleaching of some materials, in the manufacture of vulcanized rubber, matches, etc. Its most popular medicinal use is as a laxative.