410 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



The estimated worth of the last mentioned quantity was about 

 seventy five million dollars. 



DISTRIBUTION OF THE CHILI SALTPETER EXPORTED IN THE YEAR 



1905. 



Tons. 



To Germany (direct) 399.786 



To Great Britain (partly reshlpped 



to Germany) 386,584 



To France 222,824 



To U. S. A., East coast 247,847 



To U. S. A., West coast 34,500 



To Holland 97,842 



To Belgium 69,598 



To Italy 38,916 



Tons. 



To Sweden 22,896 



To South Africa 21,574 



To Sandwich Islands. 15,226 



To China and Japan 15,372 



To Danemark 12,090 



To Austria 7.590 



To Spain 6,070 



To Switzerland 2,346 



To Norway, 707 



According to the computations of Prof. Dr. Otto N. Witt, Berlin, 

 1-5 of the Chili saltpeter is used for industrial purposes, and 4-5 of 

 it in agriculture. 



There is no nitrate rock formation, nor are there any natural 

 stores of nitrogen compounds from which to draw, except these ni- 

 trate beds in South America, unless we include the newly found de- 

 posits of nitrates in California. These deposits are in the south east 

 section, in San Bernardo county, extending across the line into 

 Inyo county, and the beds mark the old shore-lines and beaches 

 which indicate the boundary of Death Valley as it was during the 

 Eocene times. Deposits are found containing from seven to sixty- 

 one per cent, nitrate, and may be extensively enough to be of na- 

 tional interest. 



Since the nitrate beds are in a sense onlv washed out manure 

 heaps from sea birds, or animal remains, they are of necessity local- 

 ized and of definite and limited size. New beds of nitrate are not 

 being formed anywhere so as to be of any real value to the next com- 

 ing generations, and it is therefore easy enough to see the inevi- 

 table result — the supply of nitrates must sooner or later became 

 exhausted — and what then? 



At the present rate of export of the Sodium Nitrate (Chili salt- 

 peter F. W. Vergara (Chem. Ind. 1904 p. 29) has calculated that the 

 nitrate beds will be exhausted by year 1923, only 16 more years, and 

 should we even double the time it must surely take place during the 

 present generation. 



In view of this fact, that the largest source of fertilizer nitrogen 

 supply is giving out, we can readily understand why the nitrogen 

 question has become such a vital one for the scientific men every- 

 where, indeed, it has been so for a number of years. 



The agriculturists and agricultural chemists have been asking: 

 How shall the farmer get nitrogen enough for his crops in the fu- 

 ture? Knowing that the air we breathe contains 79 per cent, nit- 

 rogen gas, it was very natural to look to this enormous, inexhausti- 

 ble, supply and seek for means and methods whereby it could be 

 made available to plants. Trials w^ere made with plants to find 

 out whether they themselves could make use of this nitrogen. 

 Boussingault in the early fifties, 1851-1855, conducted experiments 

 which indicated that plants could not assimilate the free nitrogen 

 of the atmosphere, and the same conclusion was reached by Lawes, 

 Gilbert and Pugh, through their elaborate experiments 1857-1858. 

 But the investigations did not stop with these experiments, they 

 were continued with different species of plants under varied con- 

 ditions, and as a result, in the middle of the eighties, Hellriegel and 



