230 Reviews — Imjyerial Sources of Potash. 



present day in the excavated pits, where rabbits and otlier animals 

 stumble into the pools of oil and become engulfed. A photograph 

 is reproduced of a jack-rabbit entrapped in this wav. 



F. H. A. M. 



Imperial Sources of Potash. 



(1) Sources of Industrial Potash in Western Australia. 

 By E. S. Simpson. Geol. Surv. W.A. Bull. No. 77, 1919. 

 (2) Potash Eecovery at Cement Plants. By A. W. G. 

 Wilson. Canada, Dept. of Mines, Bull. No. 29, 1919. (3) The 

 Potash Salts of the Punjab Salt Range and Kohat ; and 

 Suggestions regarding the Origin and History of the 

 Rock-salt Deposits of the Punjab and Kohat By 

 Murray Stuart. Rec. Geol. Surv. India, vol. I, pt. i, 1919. 



rpHE acute shortage of potash which made itself felt during the 

 -*- War stimulated a search for new sources throughout the 

 Empire, and in the three publications cited above the results of some 

 of the investigations then begun are now made j)ublic. 



1. In the Western Australian Bulletin all the possible sources 

 are fully discussed and methods of treatment suggested. It is 

 found that although immense quantities of wood-ashes are available, 

 the content of potash is in general so extraordinarily small that they 

 are useless except as a local fertilizer. Among potash-bearing 

 minerals the state resources of microcline, glauconite, jarosite, 

 KFeg(S04)2. SHgO, ^^^^ alunite are described, and it is shown that, 

 if necessary, very considerable suppHes could be obtained. It is 

 almost needless to say, however, that the inducement to develop 

 such deposits has now vanished. A detailed account of the alunite 

 deposits of Kanowna is given by T. Blatchford, and the results of 

 an examination of seaweeds for potash and iodine made by I. H. 

 Boas are also set forth. 



2. Dr. Wilson has written a valuable summary of the problems, 

 scientific and commercial, associated with the recovery of potash 

 as a by-product in the Canadian Cement industry. Equipment 

 for pL eventing the escape of flue-dust has already been installed 

 in nineteen cement plants, and of these seventeen were erected 

 with the deliberate purpose of recovering potash. The quantity 

 of potassium salts carried out with the flue-dust varies in ordinary 

 practice from 2 to 7 lb. per barrel (350 lb.) of cement. As the cement 

 plants average an individual outj^ut exceeding 3,000 barrels per day, 

 it is clear that thousands of tons of potash are saved annually, and 

 a serious nuisance — due to the escape of dust — considerably abated. 



3. A re-examination of the Indian potash deposits was under- 

 taken by Dr. Stuart during the seasons 1915-17. It was found 

 that the potash-salts occur in discontinuous lenticles and irregular 

 ioliss, and that no continuous bed is likely to be discovered in 



