The Alaska daily empire., 1916-05-09
PACIFIC OCEAN TO YIELD BADLY
 NEEDED POTASH

On Baranoff Island there is little body of water with the poetic name of Warm Springs Bay On the lee shore of this island, which, by the way, is larger than the state of Delaware, there is being established the nucleus of an industry which is expected to solve the potash prob lem, one of the gravest thrust on this country by the outbreak of the Eur opean war, says the St. Louis Re public.
 For years America has depended for It's supply of potash on German chemists. The war absolutely cut off that source. The price immed- lately scared until now potassium chloride sells for S4OO ton. It is used in many manufactories, but prin- cipally as a land fertilizer The potash famine has seriously affected agricultural interests.
 But right at our gates is practI- cally unlimited supply of potash. The Pacific Ocean is full of 1t. Is has been estimated that along the Pa ciflc coast of America alone. from San Diego to Puget Sound, there Is S20,OOO,OOOOOO worth Of potash in the raw form. Kelp or seaweed is from % to 30 per cent. potash.
 A few rendering plants have been establishea around San Diego and the kelp is now being converted in- to potash. But the southern Pacific kelp is not nearly as rich with pot ash and iodine as thet found in nor thern waters. So to the giant kelp of Alaska. manufacturers and agri- lculturalists must look for the supply of potash to take the place of the $16.OOO.0OO worth hitherto annually imported from Germany.
 Henry M. Stowe. of Cleveland, has recently returned from Alaska where he performed the preliminary work in giving Alaska new industry potash extraction On Baranof Isl and, at the foot of Lake Baranof, Stowe and his associates have chosen site Ideal for the drying of kelp and the extracting of the potash and iodine. A primitive sort of sawmill stands on the site of the water pow CT plant to be erected on the outlet of Baranof lake It is proposed to lease from the government eighty acres of land with 2.60O feet of deep water front and to install a water power plant of 5000 horse power ca pacity. The location is on what is known as Chatham Straits, where there are between three and four million tons of commercial kelp available annually.
 It costs less than S2 a ton to har- vest and dry the kelp. It takes four tons of dried kelp to produce one ton of potassium chloride or pot ash: and four tons of dried kelp produce twelve pounds of iodine. At an average cost of S3 more, the to- tai cost to produce one ton of pot assium chloride is S15. which brings at the minimum of even normal market $45 ton. It costs less than fifty cents to produce one ton of iodine. which is in the market today at S5.5O per pound
 Recent reports from Norway show that one company promoted for the extraction of iodine from seaweed has in less than years time earned surplus of 30 per cent. of the capi- tai. For many years the people along the Norwegian coast have made a business of gathering seaweeds, burning them and exporting the ash. es to Englaild where iodine was ex- tracted. but the war has increased prices to such an extent that the seaweeds are 10 be kept in Norway and the industry thus started.
 With the price of potash climbing skyward every day, the supply be- coming more and more exhausted and the demand leaping daily and rapidly, the possibilities of supply ing tho whole world, breaking the German monopoly, even after the war, and realizing untold profits from the seaweed of the Pacific ocean brings visions Of wealth equal to those dreamed by the Spanish conquerers.
 Kelp was first manufactured sev- eral centuries ago and it's manufac- ture has been extensively carried on in France, Spain. the British isles and Norway, The output of the sea- weed product In 1905 for Japan alone was S2,o00,000. In Japan nearly fifty species of seaweed are used for food and for making glue, isinglass, kanten, kombu and for manuring the rice fields.
 As fertilizer kelp has been used in England and Hurope and to a