268 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



tion of the United States and of the French possessions in northern 

 Africa. The principal German sources of supply formerly lay in 

 the Marshall Islands and in the phosphatic slags furnished by the 

 basic iron industry of Lorraine. The latter source will be transferred 

 to the French with the accession of Alsace-Lorraine and the output 

 of the Marshall Islands is now controlled by an English company 

 which finds its market chiefly in Japan and Australia. Germany 

 might find a supply in the guanos of South America. The Peruvian 

 deposits are however controlled by an English company and the 

 guanos of Oceania are in the French or British islands, so that the 

 only deposits available for Germany are those of the Patagonian 

 coast of the Argentine Republic, whose output amounted to only 

 28,000 tons in 1913. Bone phosphate and phosphate extracted from 

 animal refuse is a considerable industry in Germany and a prominent 

 company for the production of chemical fertilizers in Paris was 

 under German supervision, a fact that is noted by the French as 

 requiring action on the part of the French Government. In general 

 the phosphate apportionment is susceptible of easy regulation from 

 the Allied point of view and it could well be fixed by an interallied 

 committee for the apportioning of raw materials. Such a committee 

 would watch not only over the exports from various producing 

 countries but also over the imports into Germany. The danger of 

 overproduction in France from her natural phosphates and from her 

 increased output of basic slag would be small even if her produc- 

 tion did not find a market in Germany. The agriculture of France 

 after a long period of inaction and devastation will require an in- 

 tensive fertilization similar to that of Belgium, which employs 380 

 kilograms of superphosphate per hectare of cultivated land, as 

 against 83 kilograms per hectare employed by France before the war. 

 The consumption of phosphatic fertilizer in France could readily be 

 increased by a judicious propaganda launched by the producers. A 

 reduction in the supply of phosphate to the Central Powers would 

 greatly decrease the sugar beets in Germany, thereby reducing ap- 

 preciably her export of sugar. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



The various suggestions proposed are interesting possibilities for 

 the post-war regulation of mineral distribution. In the present 

 emergency while France is exhausted by her long struggle, practi- 

 cally depleted of man power, devastated in her own industries and 

 in those that are to be acquired in Alsace-Lorraine, some such ap- 

 pointment of output as that outlined above is not only advisable 

 but absolutely essential. 



We must now furnish the necessary handicap to German industry 

 that will allow sufficient time for France to rise to the industrial 



