26 



THE CUBA REVIEW 



CUBAN COMMERCIAL MATTERS 



G3ri3ral Vi3v\r, Armour F3rtiliz?r Works, Matanzas, Cuba. 



MATANZAS FERTILIZER WORKS 



The Armour Company of Chicago has invested one-half million dollars in the construc- 

 tion of a large modern plant on the outskirts of the city of Matanzas for the manufacture of 

 commercial fertilizers for use in Cuba. This is one of the most complete of their recently 

 constructed plants and is one of the thirty-six operated by this company throughout the world. 

 It is proposed to manufacture all kinds of fertilizer and phosphoric acid for sugar refining. The 

 buildings and equipment in this plant represent an investment of $500,000, and consist of 

 offices, laboratories, power house, acid furnaces and tanks, mixing plant, docks, water reser- 

 voirs, etc. 



The plant includes a large and most up-to-date building for the manufacture of sulphuric 

 acid, where sulphur and nitrate of soda are burned with oyxgen to make sulphuric acid. This 

 building contains four large chambers of forty tons daily capacity, each chamber is equipped 

 with numerous thermometers to record the necessary hourly temperature taken by the experts 

 in charge, and we are told that this operation requires close attention to prevent loss of the 

 sulphuric acid after a specific heat is reached which must be maintained. The next most 

 interesting operation here in the manufacture of chemical fertilizers is in the large acidulating 

 or mixing plant, where the sulphuric acid is mixed with phosphate rock, which is imported from 

 Florida, to secure the acid phosphate or fertilizer. Tankage, ammonia and blood fertilizer is 

 also received here which is mixed with the acid phosphate to make the highest grade fertilizer 

 on the market. The building used for the acidulating or mixing plant is an enormous structure 

 used for the storage of the finished product and necessitates a special type of construction pro- 

 viding for bulging or slanting walls to offset the outward pressure caused by the chemical re- 

 action of the acids and fertilizers. In connection with the sulphuricacid and acidulating 

 plants is an up-to-date chemical laboratory, where tests are hourly made of the M-id and 

 finished product. This plant will have a yearly output of 80,000 tons, or sufficient fertilizer 

 products for eighty per cent of Cuba's sugar and tobacco lands. 



A new cement wharf is being constructed to replace a former dock which was partly 

 washed away and destroyed. The location of the plant is some four miles from 



