ON THE DECOMPOSING POWER OP HOT STEAM. 19? 
Undoubtedly next to soda in importance, is the twin 
alkali, potash, which is now so extensively consumed in 
various arts and manufactures. In 1S39, Canada exported 
potashes to the value of six hundred and eighty-eight 
thousand and sixty-seven dollars. (Hunt's Mag. vol. x.5p. 
10.) In 1843, nine hundred and twenty-five thousand four 
hundred and twenty-five dollars value were exported from 
New York alone, and in IS35 Russia exported six hundred 
and fifty-four thousand six hundred and forty-nine dollars, 
making an aggregate of two and a half millions of dollars, 
from those three sources, and all derived from the soil, 
through the elaborate processes of vegetable assimilation, 
combustion, lixiviation and evaporation, and depending on 
the destruction of forest growth, which annually removes 
its sources farther from the great commercial centres. 
In view of all these facts, the prospect opened by the 
discovery of Tighlman,of obtaining an inexhaustible sup- 
ply of potash from one of our most abundant rocks, is truly 
imposing, and will, when his processes are sufficiently de- 
veloped, form one of the most prominent and lucrative 
branches of manufacture arising out of his patents. 
In 183S, forty thousand tons of sulphur were consumed 
in the manufacture of sulphuric acid, in Great Britain, 
yielding one hundred and twenty thousand tons of acid, 
valued at five millions of dollars. Should the process of 
Tighlman, for obtaining sulphurous acid from the natural 
sulphates, be rendered available in practice, this branch will 
also be important. In conclusion, it may be observed that 
in an American point of view, with our vast deposits of 
coal and salt in the Atlantic region, and the abundant oc- 
currence of the sulphates of soda and lime in our far western 
territory, a yet farther vista is opened, of the boundless 
natural wealth of oar country yet in embryo. 
18 
