90 NITRATE OF SODA. 



set free, would furnish a necessary ingredient 

 in the economy of plants. 



Its use however as a manure is very limited, 

 the results it is presumed not being adequate 

 to its price (about £^I1. per ton.) It might 

 however in certain cases be found a ready 

 means of supplying an alkali to the soil, and we 

 are inclined to believe that it* has not in all 

 cases received that attention from agriculturists 

 which its merits would warrant. 



JVitrate of Soda. — This salt, which of late 

 has attracted so much attention amongst agri- 

 culturists, is a native production of Peru. It 

 is there met with in large quantities about four- 

 teen leagues from the port of Iquicque, where 

 it forms a stratum from two to three feet thick, 

 lying close beneath the surface, and following 

 the margin of a grand basin or plain elevated 

 3300 feet above the level of the Pacific Ocean, 

 but which nevertheless appears at one time to 

 have been a lake or inland sea. 



When first introduced into this country, some 

 ten or twelve years since, a few tons only were 

 imported, and then not with any view to its use 

 for agricultural purposes, but merely as a sub- 

 stitute for the nitrate of potash, in making nitric 

 acid, &c., and even Dr. Henry in his Elements 

 of Chemistry, (published in 1829,) when speak- 

 ing of this article says, " its only use is as a 

 substitute for gunpowder in making fire- 

 works." So little can even the first abilities 

 foresee the uses to which any substance may 

 be subsequently employed. 



