18 BULLETIN 102, PART 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
adding potash rocks or minerals to the normal raw products, so as 
to increase the by-product potash yield. A potash recovery from 
the waste dusts and gases from the iron blast furnaces is opening up 
also as a somewhat similar by-product possibility. 
Sundry other sources, such as potash recovery from distillery 
wastes, wool washings, municipal wastes, ashes from sage brush, 
banana stalks, and beet-sugar wastes, need not be gone into in detail 
here, although many of them are producing in a small way. As 
further development along these lines is in keeping with the assumed 
principle that the productive utilization of waste products makes for 
the best interests of the Nation, the furtherance of these by-product 
activities assumes an importance out of proportion to the actual ton- 
nage of production. 
We have finally to examine the possibilities of those leaner but 
widespread sources of potash, upon which the w T orld must fall back 
after the exhaustion of richer deposits. Four natural products 
stand forward in this connection : Feldspar, occurring in scattered and 
rather small deposits in many parts of the country ; leucite, forming 
a conspicuous component of a rock mass of mountain dimensions in 
Wyoming; sericite, in extensive beds in Georgia; and greensand, 
found widespread in the Atlantic Coastal Plain, especially in New 
J ersey. In each type the potash content is bound up in a very stable 
form of combination, thus demanding considerable chemical energy 
for its extraction. Many processes are quite feasible from a labora- 
tory standpoint, but none has met with large-scale commercial suc- 
cess as yet. One of the most promising attempts, already locally 
successful, makes use of greensand or feldspar, and after the extrac- 
tion of potash mixes the residue with sand to produce a good grade 
of brick. This process is not only ingenious in itself, but also illus- 
trates that a raw product should not be looked upon as a mixture of 
value and waste, but as a combination of useful materials. It there- 
fore serves once more to emphasize the importance of the by-product 
idea in our industrial development. 
The outstanding feature of the potash situation is that the war 
has brought into existence a varied, loosely connected, and unstable 
domestic potash industry. What is to become of this industry with 
the resumption of peace? It will then have to meet the competition 
of the German potash deposits, which because of their size and 
workability can deliver potash to any part of the world more cheaply, 
generally speaking, than can any other source, however near. If it 
be decided that the American industry, born of war prices, should 
be stimulated into continued life, looking toward the gradual and 
normal establishment of American independence in regard to potash 
as a desirable eventuality, it will be necessary that the Government 
adopt a definite policy toward this end. Admitted that domestic 
