No. 4.] REPORT OF SECRETARY. 19 



Despite newspaper stories to the contrary, no domestic 

 source of potash has been found which can compete successfully 

 with the German potash after the war stops; and, of course, 

 capital will not invest the large sums necessary to manufacture 

 potash with the sure knowledge that foreign competition can 

 undersell them as soon as normal conditions are resumed. 



Three possible domestic sources of potash have been 

 mentioned frequently during the past year. The first is feld- 

 spar. This source has not been a fruitful one on account of the 

 great expense involved, and also on account of the small amount 

 of the element recovered. 



The recovery of potash from the giant seaweed on the 

 Pacific coast has also received considerable attention. These 

 seaweeds grow very rapidly and contain a high percentage of 

 potash. The difficulty in attracting sufficient capital to these 

 beds is that the State of California has no authority for renting 

 them, and, as any one may harvest seaweed, capitalists are loth 

 to erect large manufacturing plants without an assurance of a 

 steady supply of raw material. It has been figured out, also, 

 that the potash from this kelp would have to bring a price of 

 $40 a ton in order to return a profit to the manufacturers, and 

 as the Germans can unquestionably underbid this price if 

 necessary, this factor makes the kelp proposition unfeasible. 



A third possible source of potash in the United States which 

 has received some publicity is Searles Lake, California. The 

 water of this lake, like the Great Salt Lake and the Dead 

 Sea, is heavily saturated with salts, and the potash is secured 

 through the evaporation of the water. It is reported that a 

 company has been formed for the extraction of this potash, that 

 a railroad has been built into this lake, and that the company 

 is now nearly ready to offer some potash for sale. These salts, 

 however, have a number of impurities in them, the cost of re- 

 moving which will probably make the price prohibitive for 

 fertilizer purposes. 



It has also been proposed to extract sulphate of potash from 

 the alunite deposits in Colorado, but the fact that this process 

 would not leave any by-product of value would again make the 

 price too high. 



From the above it will be seen that until the supply from 



