Blogs and book

Various other industries can put in a bit when
Uncle Sam passes around the contribution basket marked "Potash for the
Poor." Wool wastes and fish refuse make valuable fertilizers, although
they will not go far toward solving the problem. If we saved all our
potash by-products they would not supply more than fifteen per cent. of
our needs.
Though no potash beds comparable to those of Stassfurt have yet been
discovered in the United States, yet in Nebraska, Utah, California and
other western states there are a number of alkali lakes, wet or dry,
containing a considerable amount of potash mixed with soda salts. Of
these deposits the largest is Searles Lake, California. Here there are
some twelve square miles of salt crust some seventy feet deep and the
brine as pumped out contains about four per cent. of potassium chloride.
The quantity is sufficient to supply the country for over twenty years,
but it is not an easy or cheap job to separate the potassium from the
sodium salts which are five times more abundant.


Pages:
70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94