SOME RECENT TRIUMPHS 



But an artificial supply of nitrogen is not easily se- 

 cured though something like twenty-five million tons 

 of pure nitrogen are weighing down impartially upon 

 every square mile of the earth's surface. In the midst 

 of this tantalizing sea of plenty, the farmer has been 

 obliged to take his choice between seeing his land be- 

 come yearly more and more sterile and sending to 

 far-off nitrate beds for material to take the place of 

 that removed by his successive crops. The most 

 important of the nitrate beds are situated in Chili, 

 and have been in operation since the year 1830. The 

 draft upon these beds has increased enormously in 

 recent years, with the increasing needs of the world's 

 population. In the year 1870, for example, only 

 150,000 tons of nitrate were shipped from the Chili 

 beds; but in 1890 the annual output had grown to 

 800,000 tons; and it now exceeds a million and a half. 

 Conservative estimates predict that at the present 

 rate of increased output the entire supply will be ex- 

 hausted in less than twenty years. And for some years 

 back scientists and economists have been asking them- 

 selves, What then? 



But now electro-chemistry has found an answer- 

 even while the alarmists were predicting dire disaster. 

 Means have been found to extract the nitrogen from the 

 atmosphere, in a form available as plant food, and at 

 a cost that enables the new synthetic product to com- 

 pete in the market with the Chili nitrate. So all dan- 

 ger of a nitrogen famine is now at an end, and applied 

 science has placed to its credit another triumph, second 

 to none, perhaps, among all its conquests. The author 



VOL. vi. 20 [ 305 ] 



