230 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
TABLE 5.—Sodium nitrate exported from Chile, 1840-1908. 
Period. Exports. eee Period. “| Exports. seaeees 
Tons. @ Tons. @ Tons. @ Tons. 4 
TSA0=1S44 a eee ee eee 73, 232 V4 646" S1STO-USTOM nace emcee meee 1,365, 418 273, 083 
S45 — 1840 es see AS eee or 94, 806 | 1S O61] | 880-1 8845 eee oe ee eee 2, 220, 926 444,185 
S50 —1854 rye tee neon ae 149, 960 295;922))|| 1885-18892 = 2 2. = ser eee eee 3, 318, 520 663, 704 
dgane1aso eee ee 250, 394 BI, 879"|| 1800-1804.) 2 eee 4, 813, 670 962, 734 
SREB EAE meen sen 327, 034 | 65,407° || 18051809) <2) ee 6,204,636 | 1,240,927 
ARERR USEOT aA een Ne. a 487, 324 | 97, 465 || 1900-1903. 2. 6.2. teceeeees 5,537,396 | 1,384,349 
WETOLISTA sesso secs ecn: 1,095,628} 219,125 | | 
| 
a Metric tons of 2,204 pounds. 
This material was not only cheap and relatively abundant, but, 
as previously shown,’ the richest known source of oxygen for use 
in explosives. It is not surprising, therefore, that its use for this 
purpose has rapidly grown. Nitrate of soda was first used in blast- 
ing powder in 1856, and a patent for such a powder was issued to 
La Motte Dupont in 1857. During the census year 1905 there was 
produced in the United States 205,436,200 pounds of blasting powder, 
most of which was nitrate of soda powder, and large quantities 
of this powder were manufactured and consumed in Chile and other 
countries. 
As nitrate of soda is quite deliquescent it is not suitable for direct 
use in the compounding of gunpowder, but early after becoming 
available in commerce it was made a source of manufacture of salt- 
peter. It was during the Crimean war (1854-55) that this industry 
was established in Germany, the sodium nitrate being converted into 
potassium nitrate by means of potassium carbonate obtained from 
the residues of sugar beets, and this assisted in the promotion of the 
beet-root sugar industry which Germany was seeking to foster. 
Singularly, about this time the now famous deposit of potassium 
salts was discovered at Stassfurt, Germany. This town was noted 
for its salt works in the beginnihg of the nineteenth century, the 
source of supply being the natural brine from driven salt wells. 
With the utilization of rock-salt deposits in various localities, the 
price of salt was reduced to such a point that the Stassfurt works 
ceased to yield their former large revenue to the Prussian Govern- 
ment, and, with a view of making them again valuable, the Govern- 
ment began boring for rock salt in this locality in 1839. In 1857 
a shaft, which began in 1852, reached, at a depth of 1,080 feet, a 
stratum of rock salt, but in doing so it passed through a heavy 
deposit of so-called “Abraum-salze” or refuse salts, which were 
then considered worthless. The “Abraum-salze ” were found to con- 
sist largely of the minerals carnallite, which is a magnesium- 
potassium chloride; sylvite, which is potasssium chloride; and kainite, 
4 Lectures on Chemistry and Explosives, p. 2, 1888, by Charles E. Munroe. 
