America’s advance in potash production 41 
(tailings) to yield 360,000 tons of potash annually, granting that 
only a 75 per cent extraction was made. This would be about 
150 per cent of the pre-war consumption. And worthy of care- 
ful consideration is the fact that cement, also, could be obtained 
as a product from such a plant. The difficulties in the way are 
those of transportation and markets, rather than those of ma- 
terials and processes; they are economic rather than technical. 
Of the large number of methods proposed for treating sili- 
cates in order to obtain potash, heating with lime or magnesia 
and a. chloride or sulphate of the alkali or alkali-earth metals, 
seems to be most highly esteemed. Mill tests have been so 
favorable that the adaptation of existing cement plants (as at 
Devil’s Slide, Utah) and the erection of new plants (as at Green 
River, Wyoming) for the treatment of leucite, are now under 
way. Feldspar yields its potash less readily than does leucite, 
but even at that good extractions are to be had, and it is prob- 
able that only the fear of ruinous competition on the part of the 
German Kalisyndikat has prevented capital from entering this 
field more extensively. 
Entirely unlike the processes outlined above are those pro- 
posed for utilizing glauconite or green sand. This material can 
be decomposed by water, or by water and carbon dioxide, under 
pressure at high temperatures, and quite pure potassium hydrox- 
ide or carbonate made in one operation. The by-product formed 
can be used for manufacturing building materials resembling sand- 
lime brick. Unfortunately deposits of glauconite in a sufficiently 
pure state are far less extensive than those of the other potash- 
bearing minerals. 
ORGANIC SOURCES 
d. Suint from wool washing gives potassium carbonate on 
ignition. About 300 tons of potash (K 2 O) came from this source 
in 1917. 
b. Beet sugar residues^ especially those from the Steffens proc- 
ess, gave 360 tons potash in 1917. 
c. Molasses from cane sugar factories, and distillery waste gave 
2850 tons of potash in 1917. 
