active efforts to acquire the entire American potash trade. The market under present conditions is highly competitive, and only those domestic companies that can operate on a low cost basis may hope to share it. The progress made by American producers during the last year is therefore highly significant of the virility of the organizations that participated in it. The outlook for new projects, however, is not encouraging.

AMERICAN POTASH INDUSTRY

As shown in a preceding table, there were 12 plants that produced potash during 1923. Of these plants, 3 utilized salines, 1 obtained it from cement manufacture, 6 from blast-furnace dusts, 1 from molasses-distillery waste, and 1 from beet-sugar waste (Steffens water). With the exception of the American Trona Corporation's plant, at Searles Lake, Calif., these plants produced potash as a relatively insignificant by-product of other industries. At the Searles Lake plant potash was the main product, but by-product borax helped to bear the cost of operation.

American Trona Corporation.-The American Trona Corporation, which is a subsidiary of the Consolidated Goldfields of South Africa (Ltd.), London, practically dominates the present American potash industry. According to recently published figures, this company alone produced in 1923 about 30,000 tons of potash salts, averaging 96.5 per cent potassium chloride on the dry basis, together with about 14,000 tons of pure borax. This year (1924) the plant is doing still better. The report for the week ended February 13 showed a production of 732 tons of potassium chloride and 312 tons of borax, besides other products. If this rate can be maintained, the total production for the current year should exceed 38,000 tons of potash salts and 16,000 tons of borax. The purity of the product obtained is remarkable, being considerably above that of the usual commercial grades of potassium chloride.

The successful operation of this plant marks an achievement in chemical engineering, for the brine to be treated is complex, and the process employed involves concentration by artificial evaporation and crystallization under delicate temperature controls with the use of expensive machinery. Fuel and labor have to be brought in from the outside. Notwithstanding these disadvantages the company has steadily reduced its costs of production and has been meeting competitive foreign prices in eastern markets at rates even lower than before the war.

Other activities at Searles Lake.-The West End Consolidated Mining Co. and the Solvay Process Co. have plants at Searles Lake that have for some time been inactive. A new venture has been undertaken there by the Burnham Chemical Co., which employs a solar evaporation process and claims that it can produce potash, borax, and other salts from Searles Lake brines at much less cost than its competitors. This company's plant was visited in May, 1924, by a Survey representative. Tanks, washers, evaporating pans, and other structures representing the outlay of thousands of dollars had been erected and the company was busily preparing for commercial

Am. Fertilizer, Apr. 5, 1924, p. 31.

production, which it hoped might be begun by midsummer, 1924. If this venture is successful it may materially swell American potash production. It should be noted, however, that the process has not yet been tried out in a commercial way, though it appears to have been successful in its experimental stages. Moreover, the markets for both potash and borax, which are to be the chief products, are highly competitive, and the markets for the other salts which the company proposes to manufacture are not particularly active and will in large measure have to be developed in the future. The project is therefore to be regarded as still speculative to a considerable degree. Its outcome will be watched with interest.

By-product potash. Although in a sense all the potash now produced in the United States is by-product potash, it is hardly fair to apply this term to the American Trona Corporation's product, for this company's plant was designed primarily for the production of potash and it is now functioning in accordance with its original plan, notwithstanding the fact that it also produces considerable borax. Exact amounts can not be specified without disclosing confidential information, but it may be said that by-product potash in 1923 furnished in round numbers about 26 per cent of the total production of crude potash but only 15 per cent of the K2O. At the present rate of increased production at the American Trona plant and with the possible introduction of the Burnham Chemical Co. as a producer, it is clear that this ratio will decrease in the future unless a larger number of industrial plants adopt means of recovering potash from their wastes. As the average K2O content of all the potash salts produced in the country was about 52 per cent, it will be seen that the by-product potash, which averages only 31 per cent, is, on the whole, low-grade material.

GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES

Geological Survey.-The activities of the Geological Survey in 1923 relative to potash were confined chiefly to the Texas potash field, described on pages 178-185. Walter B. Lang, the Survey's representative, with field headquarters at Midland, Tex., visited all available wells, interviewed drillers, and procured samples of cuttings and brines, which were analyzed at the laboratories of the Survey in Washington.

In addition, J. T. Pardee examined a tract of land near Whitehall, Mont., for which application for patent under the potash leasing law had been made. This land proved to contain no soluble potash salts, but instead considerable areas in which potash-bearing feldspar was exposed. These areas are briefly described on page 178.

Publications on potash during the year included the annual chapter on potash in Mineral Resources for 1922 and Press Notice 16953, "More evidence of potash in western Texas."

Bureau of Mines.-The Bureau of Mines is charged with the administration of leases under the potash leasing law and has been actively occupied during the year in that work. The bureau has kept track of potash activities in general but has initiated no investigations relating to the subject.

The following statement, kindly supplied by Mr. C. C. Mather, of the bureau, shows that in the Western States considerable interest is being maintained in lands that are potentially potash bearing.

The records of this office show that under the provisions of the potash act of October 2, 1917, 312 potash permits were issued up to and including June 30, 1924, covering an area of 728,456.48 acres. Up to the same date six potash leases were issued, covering an area of 9,943.76 acres.

For the fiscal year 1924 37 potash permits were issued, covering 76,485.76 acres, and two potash leases, covering 2,600 acres.

The following statement shows the States in which the permits and leases were issued:

Bureau of Soils.-The Bureau of Soils has recently issued publications summarizing its earlier work on blast-furnace dusts and on kelp. (See bibliography, p. 200.) The following statement, kindly furnished by Dr. J. W. Turrentine, scientist in charge of the bureau's potash investigations, expresses the bureau's view of the American potash industry.

We have in sight, we feel, the early and successful solution of the essential and most pressing phases of our potash problem. From industrial wastes, in industries already operating on a successful basis, wherein through the installation of more economical methods and machinery by-products can be developed, we expect to recover a large portion of our present and future potash requirements. I refer particularly to the blast-furnace, the cement, the sugar, the distillery, and the borax industries. In the larger of these industries surveys have been completed, and the quantities of potash which can be yielded as a by-product have been determined. The feasibility of its recovery has been demonstrated; but there yet remains the perfection of methods, the improvement in processes which will make its recovery so attractive economically that these industries will be impelled to conserve it. We feel that these problems are near solution, that this solution is almost within our grasp, and that a short period of aggressive chemical and engineering research will enable us to remove the remaining difficulties and demonstrate the substantial profits which we feel confident can be realized from the recovery of this potash. Wartime momentum has been largely lost, but there yet remains in important quarters a great deal of interest in this problem which can be utilized collaboratively to further the enterprise if there be not too great a delay in taking advantage of it.

What we have in mind with respect to the development of a by-product potash industry may be illustrated by an analogous conservation already realized which makes available for American agriculture great quantities of that other essential of present fertilizer practice, namely, ammonium sulphate. This chemical is a by-product of the coking industry, and its value has now become so well recognized and its production so wel Istandardized that the coking of coal without by-products has almost disappeared and the production of by-product ammonia has advanced from nothing to a yearly output of almost 600,000 tons. What has happened in the coking industry it is our hope to see duplicated in the blastfurnace, the cement, the sugar, and the distillery industries. The important results already obtained in governmental and private researches convince us that this is an entirely reasonable expectation.

Potash yielded from these industries would be distributed economically, as it would be produced for the most part near the points of consumption. Long freight hauls and the great expense thereby incurred would be avoided.

In certain mineral deposits already surveyed are further quantities of potash, enormous in extent but awaiting before becoming available considerable more re

search, to determine more profitable methods of recovery. The greensands of New Jersey, the potash shales of Georgia, the leucites of Wyoming, and the alunites of Utah contain in the aggregate inexhaustible quantities of potash, and methods of recovering it therefrom are now much nearer solution than is generally recognized. The problem is one of by-products-other values to be recovered with the potash to cheapen its cost of manufacture. Results now in hand warrant the expectation that all of these materials can with further research be made to yield their quota to the Nation's potash supplies.

Finally, the observations recorded in the Texas Panhandle showing unmistakable evidences of subterranean potash deposits convince us that in some one of these three fields of research, if not in all of them, adequate quantities of potash will be produced certainly to render the American farmer free from danger of unrestricted exploitation by foreign monopoly, if not to supply the Nation with its entire requirements in respect to that essential commodity.

POTASH FELDSPAR IN MONTANA

In July, 1923, J. T. Pardee, from whose account the following statement is taken, examined a tract of land in sec. 18, T. 1 N., R. 2 W., about 10 miles east of Whitehall, Mont., which had been included in an application for patent by Donald A. Morrison, of Whitehall. Limespur, a station on the Northern Pacific Railway on the north side of Jefferson River, is near the south quarter corner of sec. 18. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway runs along the south bank of the river near the same place.

The northern part of the section is underlain by older schist and conglomerate and the southern part by younger limestone; the two sets of rocks are separated by a fault. An igneous rock, pegmatite, that is associated with schist in the northern part of the section contains 60 to 80 per cent of potash feldspar, the remainder being chiefly quartz. The pegmatite underlies irregular areas that aggregate 40 acres or more, but it is thought that it may have wider extent beneath a cover of conglomerate. The developments consist of a small shaft, a few small open cuts, and an adit. An average sample of material from a mixed body 40 feet wide exposed in a cut in the SE. NE. 4 sec. 18 contained 5.87 per cent of potash (K,O), but a sample of pink feldspar taken from several irregular bodies at the same locality and aggregating 10 feet in width yielded 12.63 per cent of K2O.

THE TEXAS POTASH FIELD

SUMMARY OF INVESTIGATIONS

Since 1912, when the first discovery of potash in western Texas was made by Dr. J. A. Udden, interest has centered more and more strongly on this region as a probable commercial source of natural salts of potash. The geologic resemblance between this field and the well-known potash fields of Germany and Alsace had already been recognized, and hopes of discovering potash there had been entertained, so that the discovery itself, though welcome, was no surprise.

The evidence thus far obtained consists solely of brines and cuttings from wildcat wells drilled for oil by methods that provide only qualitative information. Samples have been obtained through the courtesy of drillers, many of whom had scant interest in potash. These samples disclosed the presence at many widely scattered localities of polyhalite (MgSO,.K2SO,.2 CaSO4.2H2O), one of the common potash minerals in the German deposits.

With the extension of wildcatting more wells yielding potash cuttings have been drilled and the extent of the area in which potash is known to occur has been increased. No quantitative information, however, is available, upon which a commercial judgment may be based, for nothing is yet known about the thickness, quality, and extent of individual potash-bearing beds, though it is known that some material of commercial grade is present.

The location of the Texas potash field with respect to other domestic sources of potash and to certain trade centers is shown on the accompanying map of the United States (fig. 11). The location of the individual wells with respect to counties and railroads is shown in the map of western Texas and adjoining territory (Pl. I). The better well records are shown graphically in Plate II. It should be noted that this diagram shows only the depths from which potashbearing material was taken but not the thickness of the respective potash beds. The apparent repetition of potash strata in these wells may be due in part to the recovery at lower depths of material dislodged from a bed nearer the surface.

The following table gives the names and general location of the potash-bearing wells shown on the map, together with some potash data.

In 1923 and the early part of 1924 efforts were made to procure samples from all wells being drilled in the area that was believed to contain potash, and in addition brines from a number of lakes were tested. The data gathered from these sources may be conveniently grouped according to counties.

Andrews County.-Samples analyzed from salts taken from Lost Lake in sec. 9, block A-36, Andrews County, showed merely traces of potash in the soluble salts. A sample of brine from Lake Shafter showed 0.3821 gram of salts per cubic centimeter, with 2.73 per cent of K,O in the soluble salts. This is a strong brine, and the percentage of potash is significant but by no means comparable to that of the brine now being utilized at Searles Lake, Calif.