46 
BULLETIN 102, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
drawn upon and presumably with the help of the electric current . * 1 
It is scarcely too much to say that the fertilizer industry in the 
course of a decade or so will undergo a radical change, in which im- 
portations of Chilean nitrate, German potash, and Spanish pyrite 
will be a thing of the past. But the course of progress will depend 
very much upon the conditions surrounding the supply of electrical 
power in this country; this matter will determine the speed of ad- 
vancement and reflect in some measure in this respect upon the cost of 
living. 
In the field of manufacturing, electrochemistry occupies a unique 
place. It has already created a number of products of fundamental 
usefulness, while the latent opportunities for the future are very 
great. The development of artificial abrasives, especially carborun- 
dum, superior to natural abrasives, has greatly facilitated many 
processes of mechanical manufacture, such as the making of automo- 
biles, ordnance, and other materials; the production of calcium car- 
bide has made the acetylene lamp possible, with inestimable benefit 
to thousands of mines the world over, which have thus been freed 
from smoky oil lamps and flickering candles; and the manufacture 
of artificial graphite is rendering a useful service as a lubricant 
in conserving energy. These products, which are of much greater 
significance than may be measured by the pecuniary value of the 
output, have all been developed at Niagara Falls as result of the 
abundant electric power earlier available there and are made from 
cost of the finished product. This goes to show that while under present conditions the 
process verges on being a commercial proposition, an appreciable induction in the cost 
of power, even under post-war conditions of cheaper sulphuric acid, would bring the 
electric-furnace method into competition with the old acid process. The gain in trans- 
portation accruing from the shipment of a common ity of three times the present concen- 
tration and the enlargement in the phosphate reserve made possible by bringing into play 
phosphate rock containing more than 3 to 4 per cent of the combined oxides of iron and 
aluminum (material not usable in the present acid process) commend the whole matter 
to careful consideration. It should be remembered, too, that of fertilizing materials 
phosphoric acid appears to be the only one which, from present knowledge, is absolutely 
limited in amount and therefore demands unusual care in its utilization. 
1 “ With respect to the necessary supplies of plant foods other than nitrogen, it has 
not as yet been seriously considered to utilize electric power, but, speaking to electrical 
engineers, I can say that the extraction of potash from feldspathic and granitic rocks 
by electrolysis presents by no means an insoluble or even, in my opinion, a difficult 
problem. It is perhaps the easiest way that has been as yet proposed to artificially obtain 
potash, which only awaits cheap enough power to become a reality. I need only remind 
you that in the silicate rocks of which our mountain ranges are composed, there lie 
dormant untold billions of tons of potash, to show that when the proper time comes 
we will not want for raw material. On this special topic I am well informed, for I have 
made a close study of it in the laboratory and in the field for many years.” (A. S. Cush- 
man, Water-power development and the food problem, Proc. Amer. Inst. Electr. Eng., May, 
1916, p. 547.) Since this was written, as noted above, the electric-furnace production 
of phosphoric acid has almost become a commercial possibility — so rapid is progress in 
such matters. Also, part of the potash even now being produced in the United States 
is precipitated from waste fumes from cement plants and blast furnaces by means of the 
discharge of an electric current. Thus the statement above bids fair to be realized, if not 
literally, at least through the by-pioduct recovery of potash by means of the electric 
current. 
