Word: sulphureous
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...only dream about a few years ago. Slapdash buildings were going up everywhere; Minatitlán's newest hotel opened for business before it was even finished, a second bank went up, honky-tonk bars and gambling joints were busy 24 hours a day. Cause of it all: sulphur, an element far more valuable to industry than gold. Last week, after years of exploration, three newly formed U.S. companies started to work huge deposits hidden under the isthmus jungles, shipped off their first 30 tons to world markets...
Cheap & Easy. No one knows exactly how much sulphur lies under Mexico's narrow neck, but the deposits are estimated to be immense, second only to the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast deposits. So far, the three U.S. companies have spent $10 million on plants, roads, pipelines and port facilities to tap deposits on 30,000 acres, only a fraction of their leaseholds. Mexican Gulf Sulphur Co. has built a plant with a 200,000-ton annual capacity; Pan American Sulphur Co. has put up another worth $5,000,000 with a 500,000-ton capacity; Gulf Sulphur Corp...
What makes Mexico's sulphur doubly attractive is the fact that the deposits are located in gigantic salt domes, which can be mined by the Frasch process, the cheapest method known. (Superheated water is pumped into the ground to liquefy the sulphur, which is then pumped to the surface.) Costs range from $7 to $20 per ton, as low as one-tenth the cost of other methods, and far cheaper than the world market price...
Into the Jungle. The men largely responsible for the boom are three genial, Louisiana-born brothers named Brady-Lawrence, 58, Ashton, 56, and William, 54-who have become wealthy by a combination of brainy prospecting and luck. They found the sulphur, and now own Gulf Sulphur Corp., plus an exploration outfit called Amican Sulphur Co., S.A., and have sizeable stock interests in both Pan American and Mexican Gulf Sulphur. Working as a team, brothers Lawrence and Bill run the administrative end; Ashton is the geologist...
...process for leaching uranium out of the ground with water (TIME, Jan. 17). Estimated price: $400,000. The two Hunts agreed to pay all future costs of development and exploration. Said 28-year-old N. Bunker Hunt: "It wasn't too long ago that we were still mining sulphur like we mine gold. Then someone thought up the idea of melting it and forcing it to the surface with steam, and it revolutionized the industry. I think Shepherd's process may do the same for uranium." ¶ Jeeps with scintillometers roamed the back-country roads along Texas...