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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLII. No. 1093 



excluded lands is extremely small, since they 

 contain few agricultural areas, although in 

 some localities there are said to he small 

 patches suitable for farming. 



We learn from Nature that the council of 

 the Chemical Society has sent to every fellow 

 a letter directing attention to the government 

 scheme for the organization and development 

 of scientific and industrial research. In ac- 

 cordance with this scheme, a committee of the 

 privy council has been appointed, and also an 

 advisory council of scientific men whose pri- 

 mary functions are to advise the committee of 

 council on — (i) proposals for instituting spe- 

 cific researches; (ii) proposals for establishing 

 or developing special institutions or depart- 

 ments of existing institutions for the scientific 

 study of problems affecting particular indus- 

 tries and trades; (iii) the establishment and 

 award of research studentships and fellow- 

 ships. The council of the Chemical Society 

 considers it to be the urgent duty of every 

 fellow to render all assistance possible to the 

 advisory council by suggesting suitable sub- 

 jects for research. As pointed out in the White 

 Paper, the results of all researches financed by 

 public funds will be made available under 

 proper conditions for the public advantage, 

 and the council feels assured that every fellow 

 will place patriotic duty before private gain at 

 such a time. Suggestions for purely scientific 

 researches will be appreciated, but those having 

 a direct bearing on chemical industry and its 

 promotion will natiirally receive a preference. 



Following Secretary Lane's instructions to 

 put special effort into its potash investiga- 

 tions, the United States Geological Survey is 

 publishing the suggestion that a possible source 

 of potash may exist in the tailings piled up at 

 the concentrating mills of the big copper mines 

 in the west. The " porphyry " ores which are 

 being mined by the millions of tons annually 

 contain several times as much potash as cop- 

 per, and this remains in the tailings at the 

 mills, material already finely ground and in 

 condition for treatment, as well as easily ac- 

 cessible for shipment. This potash, however, 

 is locked up in the form of silicate minerals, 

 and the commercial extraction of potash from 



silicates has been for several years the subject 

 of earnest study by industrial chemists. If 

 this problem can be solved, it would appear 

 that a large tonnage of potash-bearing mate- 

 rial is available in the Western States. The 

 brief report issued this week by the Geological 

 Survey (Bulletin 620-J) contains typical anal- 

 yses of these " porphyry " ores from the larg- 

 est copper camps in a half-dozen states, as well 

 as tonnage estimates of the ore reserves and 

 ore already mined and treated. A few check 

 analyses of tailings are also published. Sug- 

 gestion of a possible potash reserve in these 

 tailings originated with B. S. Butler, the geol- 

 ogist in charge of the Survey's statistical study 

 of copper, who has based this short paper upon 

 the published analyses of specimens collected 

 by the government geologists in their inves- 

 tigations of the mining districts. The signif- 

 icant fact regarding this possible source of 

 potash is that in quantity it is more than ade- 

 quate to meet all the needs of the country as 

 measured by present consumption of potash. 

 The problem of potash extraction from this 

 by-product of the copper industry therefore 

 becomes an attractive one for the chemical 

 engineer and mineral technologist. 



A PRESS bulletin of the U. S. Geological 

 Survey notes that for many years the origin 

 of the peninsula of Florida has been the sub- 

 ject of speculation among scientists. Some 

 sixty years ago the great naturalist Louis 

 Agassiz advanced the hypothesis that the 

 greater part of the peninsula had been pro- 

 duced during comparatively recent times by 

 successive growth of coral reefs along its south- 

 ern margin, which has thus been extended far- 

 ther and farther into the waters of the Gulf. 

 A few years later Joseph LeConte restated his 

 view of the organic origin of Florida and sug- 

 gested that the work of corals has been largely 

 supplemented by mud and other sediments 

 dropped by the Gulf Stream. This hypothesis 

 was generally accepted as correct for many 

 years, but in 1881 Professor Eugene A. Smith 

 discovered that the greater part of the penin- 

 sula of Florida is underlain at no great depth 

 by limestones which are not the work of corals 

 and which were formed long before the Ee- 



