What About Potash? 



Talk about coal! Why, potash costs 

 $450 a ton and hard to get at that 



THE farmers of the United States and 

 of other countries are dependent on 

 Germany for cheap potash. Ger- 

 many's famous potash beds are unique. 

 These salt beds constitute an important 

 geologic formation, for there are no other 

 similar deposits in all the earth, and 

 potash is indispensable to agriculture and 

 industry. 



In 1913, the year before the war, these 

 mines produced close to 12,000,000 tons 

 of crude potash salts, an amount sufficient 

 to build a pyramid nearly twice the size 

 of the famous pyramid of Cheops. At 

 that time, this industry employed 2,200 

 officers and 40,000 laborers. It used 

 1,600 boilers, running 2,200 steam engines 

 and developing 220,000 horse-power. The 

 average daily output was 3,670 carloads 



of 10 tons each. A fleet of 258 ships, each 

 carrying 4,000 tons, was required to 

 transport the 1,032,127 tons of potash 

 salts used in the United States in 1913. 



The greatest chemical need of this 

 country today is for potash. Besides 

 being indispensable to growing crops, it 

 has a multitude of uses in the arts and 

 industries. It is essential to the manu- 

 facture of munitions, glass, matches, 

 baking-powders, drugs, dye-stuffs, soap, 

 antiseptics, and many other articles. 

 Potash salts are used in the purification 

 of water for municipal and industrial 

 uses, in the metallurgy of gold, electro- 

 plating, processes of refrigeration and the 

 commercial production of hydrogen for 

 the inflation of balloons and Zeppelins. 

 Photographers use it, so do painters, 

 bleachers, weavers, dyers, paper makers, 

 chemists, and many other artisans. With- 

 out caustic potash, Edison's 

 famous storage cell would be 

 impossible. 



The known sources of potash 

 in this country are pitifully 

 small in comparison with the 

 needs. The total of the much 

 heralded supply in Searles Lake, 

 California, will not exceed the 

 output of the German mines 



All the comforts of 

 home! Eating lunch 

 far underground in 

 a potash mine some- 

 where in Germany 



Hard at work. Ger- 

 many's potash 

 mines produce 

 annually twelve 

 million tons of 

 crude ore, 40',o pure 



