Sulphur King, Herman Frasch.—Inventor of the method of pumping up sulphur from its deposits, known as the water process, patented in 1891, which made available the large sulphur deposits in southern Louisiana and other places, which had puzzled engineers for years. Frasch came originally from Germany in the steerage, obtained work sweeping out a retail drug store, became a clerk and finally was graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. He joined the Standard Oil Company, and in prospecting for oil came upon abandoned sulphur workings. The deposits were covered with quicksands which had caused the death of several men, they exhaled noxious gases and the attempts to mine them were called a failure. Frasch bought them for a song on his own account, and began sinking his own perforated pipes through which he forced steam and hot water from a battery of boilers which he had rigged up. Frasch became a millionaire and revolutionized sulphur mining in Sicily.