The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1916-02-14
MAY DISCOVER POTASH.
well-diggers Have Chance to Locate
Deposits.

1 DtpOSitS.
Well diggers in the United States may
find an opportunity to discover potasi
as mere by-produet OF drilling for Other
materials. This opportunity, which may
be called duty and which should not
be unmixed with interest, only requires
| that the drller shall watch the drill
lcuttings and salt waters brought up by
| his outfit and thus cooperate with the
government in its search for potash.
! The advance in price of potash salts
| from the normal rate of about $40 to
over 800 a ton since the outbreak OF
the war makes still more evident than
before the difficulty as well as the duty
of finding this indispensable commodity
somewhere within our own vast domain
while the country waits The United
States geological survey has devoted a
part of its energies to the investigation
of rocks and minerals containing large
percentages of potash and TO the search
by the drill for beds of potash salts
that have been buried during different
geological periods in the evaporation
pans of certain dried.up ancient inland
seas and lakes. The work done has in
cluded the testing Of brines and bitterns
from many places, especially from salt
producing fields, and the examination OF
drill cuttings from wells.
1t is practically certain that beds of
potash salts, il they exist in basins In
the United States other than Searles
lake. Cal, were laid down in geologic for
nations that include beds of common
salt, gypsum, anhydrite, and like miner
ais, Just as they were in Germany and
Spain, though the beds may not be so
thick. The formations laid down in those
ancient seas and lakes, which by their
evaporation deposited thick beds OF salt
and other minerals, therefore probably /
afford the best promise of yielding salts
rich in potash.
Beds of rock salt and gypsum occur IN
large areas in the United States. They
are found in the Salina rocks of New
York and Pennsylvania and in other
of about the same age, laid
down in Michigan and Ohio during peri
DDS of great aridty. In southern Mich !
gan a bed of rock salt 900 feet thick is
said to have been found by drill holes.
Dense brines or salt deposits are found |
IN carboniferous strata in West Virgil |
MIA and other eastern states, in the red |
beds" of the southwest and the Rock /
mountains, in the cretaccous deposits OF :
several of the western states, and in the /
tertiary strata Of the far southwest. In
many of these regions there may have
been areas where the evaporation OF the
water bodies precipitated potash salts as
we'll as common salt. though in most OF
hese areas, as in most of the more re-
ent western lake beds, the potash was
distracted and jealousy secreted by the
laws of the muddy waters. and so de-
,osited in the sharles. In some of these
alt -depositing areas, however, the con-
itions were no doubt at some time ia
orsbIe for the laying down OF blankets
( potash salts that were later buried
eneath other formations. 1t is unres-
enable to believe that in every one Of
hesc evaporation pans the potash was
iffused. and that nowhere throughout
he widespread and diversified salt beds
/ different geologic periods in this eoun-
~ was potash thrown down in beds
in size to those in the old
.orld. /