The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1899-04-11
NEW SODA DEPOSITS.
An Inexhaustible Supply of Pure
Su1phate in Wyoming.
A New Industry That Promises to
Make the American Market In
dependent of Foreign :
Concerns. !

By the opening up of the vast nat
ural soda deposits of Wyoming an
other industry is to be added to the
rapidly growing list in which the
United States can outstrip the world
Natures laboratory, which is working
underground, and without pay roll,
is turning out an ineXhaustible sup
ply of pure sulphate of soda which is
The base of large number of by-prod-
ucts that are used in one form or an
other in almost every sort of manufac-
ture and in every household in civiliza-
ton. Natures product is one stage
nearer the point of consumption than
is the manufactured article. Over 20
per cent. of the latter consumed in this
country is imported and practically all
CT the remaining 80 per cent. is made
in factories that are branches of the
foreign establishments. The quantity
thus far taken from the deposits is not
sufficient to supply small fraction of
the glass makers of the Indiana gas
belt alone, though the latter can use
it at an immense saving over the man
ufactured and can turn cut a better
quality of glass. The elimination of
the expensive processes of manufac-
ture puts the native soda in "a position
not only to command the American
markets, but ultimately to pay for ex
porting it to the very countries from
which the American supply is now COM
ing. Despite the fact that only be-
ginning has been made on the home
trade there is every indication that its
rise from an infant industry to point
where it can command the world will
be very rapid. To accomplish this re-
suit the native soda must supplant the
400, GOO tons of soda ash used by the
window and plate glass makers of this
country each-year, and then take care
of the immensely greater demands of
the baking powder, soap, saleratus,
washing crystal, sal soda, concentrated
lye, pulp, glucose, smoke!ess gunpow-
der and match manufacturers, and also
the tanners, bleachers, wooden mill
men, dyers, packers, printers, pho
tographers, starch makers and a host
of other users outside of the medicinal.
All of these demands and ndimmeasurable
quantities more can be supplied from the
three lakes or beds lying II miles SOUTH
west of Laramie, and which comprise
the bulk of the deposits, in workable
quantities, of the state. These depos-
it's are known as Red lake, Track lake
and Big lake, and are fed by countless
springs which constantly replenish the
supply as fast as it is drawn upon.
These deposits contain Al per cent. of
pure sulphate of soda, trife less than
54 per cent. of water and about two
per cent. of other matter, chiefly car
Donate of soda and chloride of sodium,
or common salt. All that is necessary,
it is said. to put the product on the
market is to eliminate the moisture. 1t
can be sold throughout America at an
immense profit, even at the lowest fig
,1res ever quoted here, though the
branches of the foreign factories
1ave frequently sold their output be-
ow the cost of production to freeze
out the small American establishments
that have been started in opposition to
them within the last so years.
The soda properties have always
proven immensely profitable, and great
| efforts have been made by the English
iand German makers to keep compet-
itors out of the field. The largest of
the English concerns, which also con-
trolls the largest concern in this coun-
try, has paid dividends of 35 to so per
cent. to its shareholders ever since 1T
was organized. The American branch
pays even larger profits, but its shares
are closely held, and NO information
concerning the profits ever reaches the
public. The base product of the arti-
fetal article is salt or salt water, which,
after reduction to the form of sulphate
Of soda, must be clarified by expensive
processes before it can be used for
many of the purposes for which it is
intended Before it can be used for
making plate glass the iron, which all
salt contains, and which the ammonia
Or leading artificial process does not
eliminate, must be removed by the in
PRODUCTION of one part of arsenic to nine
of sulphate. The arsenic alone costs
at the rate of SIS per ton. The native
soda, having no impurities, makes a
much clearer as we'll as stronger and
tougher glass; and it is even claimed
that it is better than the French plate.
The Laramie deposits, which are the
! purest as wei as the most accessible
in the state, passed into the control of
one of the largest firms of importers
of heavy chemicals west of New York
several years ago, and this firm recent
ly transferred its holdings to Chicago
corporation, which is preparing to
| vastly increase the outPu: by the erec-
lion of plant capable Of turning out
200 tons of product per day. The ex-
treme limit of the plant now on the
ground is $50 tons per day.