34 
W. C. EBAUGH 
diplomacy/’ and the abolition of secret treaties, the organization 
of benevolence on an unprecedented scale, and the expenditure 
of time and money to repair wastage — not for self, but for those 
who would have been considered aliens, beyond the pale of one’s 
normal interest a few months ago. 
It has been well said that the sinews of war are men, munitions 
or material, money and morale. In the second category come 
explosives and the enginery of war, clothing, shelter and food. 
And the greatest of these is food — food not only for men at the 
front, but for all the people of the nation at war. The maxi- 
mum production of food without fertilizers is impossible, and 
Liebig’s doctrines that phosphates, nitrogen and potash must 
be put into soils to replace these constituents removed with 
crops and transported to distant places, have found ever increas- 
ing acceptance since they were published some seventy-five 
years ago. Of these three plant foods, the Allies and the United 
States had access to phosphates and nitrogen in sufficient 
amounts, but in the case of potash, Germany was sole dictator. 
In fact, her control of this great natural monopoly constituted 
her Affine big economic weapon” which she threatened to use 
in such a way that the nations of the world would be brought 
starving to her doors, begging for potash that they might have 
bread! 
STASFURT DEPOSITS 
The story of Stasfurt salt deposits is one of great interest. 
For centuries salt had been obtained from this district in north 
central Germany, near Magdeburg, and the deposits are known 
to be at least 100 square miles in area, with strata 3 to 4 inches 
thick and with some 15,000 “rings” or layers, indicating that 
the salt required at least 15,000 years for its deposition. Judg- 
ing from workings down to the 3300 foot level, it has been esti- 
mated that brine, from which these salts came, would have 
covered the earth to a depth of 50 miles, that the temperature 
during at least a part of the time evaporation was taking place, 
varied from 80° to 160°F. and that “conditions for air evapora- 
tion were exceedingly favorable during the Permian period.” 
