The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-07-09
WHY CONGRESS VOTED s2oooo.ooo FOR
 A NITRATE PLANT.

A NITRATE PLANT.
 G7HAT great necessity for civilized TAI living does America lack. and is IU obliged to import?
 - Two years ago this question
 asked of the average citizen might have brought an answer to the effect that rubber, silk, coffee or tea might be classed as great necessities not to be found among Americas resources. The average citizen might have added that even these things could hardly be called necessities, for we to do so.
 And when one stops to consider the vast and varied resources of our great country and its possessions, with climates varying from frigid Alaska to tropical Porto Rico it would seem that the average citizen was very nearly correct. but let us see.
 The European war brought to at least one country involved period of stern ne- cessity-and progress. Not the slow and 1abored progress of industry in times of peace, but the desperate, daring progress of nation of scientists cut of from the world by enemies and forced to meet every need from her own resources.
 America's Limitations
 Brought to Our Attention.
 How we'll she has done 50 her own con. dftion testiies. and Germany in her ex- treme crisis has brought us of America to startling appreciation of our own nrnita- tions.
 Not the least alarming of these limita- tons, made evident hv the testimony of Gen. Wn. Crozier. chief of the ordnance bureau. before the committee on military anairs of the sixty-third congress. second session. when he showed the committee why our great battleships and huge land batteries would be quickly silenced in time of war. because of the shortage of certain fmnortant material
 Other committees also were investfrat- ing the high cost of living in America, and here again this material was found to con- trol the situation. and thus 1t came to be appreciated that large quantities of sin- gle great commodity are absolutely neces- sarv Tn time of peace. and equally indis- rensable in time of war. It was shown that we have no adequate supply of this article. md while the raw material for It's manu- fracture surrounds us on every side, and fifty vears' supply is to be found on every snuare mile. there is not a single factory for its production within the United States. That commodity is nitrogen.
 Something About the
 Element of Nitrogen.
 Truly our position Is that of the ship wrecked mariners with "water. water, everywhere. and not drop to drink"
 We live in an atmosphere that is three- quarters nitrogen. Our food contains it. and it is to be found in all animal and vegetable tissue in greater or lesser amounts. Combined with certain elements it yields us the most delicate and fragrant of perfumes, and in other combinations produces with equal readiness the fou1est of stenches.
 It is found in many forms in the most potent remedies for the relief of the sick and enters into the composition of hun dreds of the most deadly poisons.
 Combined with other phosphoric acit and potash 1t becomes our Complete fer ti1izer," increasing the yield of every prod uct of the field, and reducing the high cos of living, while in the form of nitric acit 1t produces in combination with cottoi fbre a series of high power explosive that may convert productive fields to chaos
 And yet this nitrogen, having endless combinations which are the most activ and energetic of compounds is, when fount by itself. simply an inert gas that cal neither be seen, smelled nor tasted-a mos intangible substance, that stubbornly re fuses to unite even with oxygen unde ordinary atmospheric conditions.
 Lucky 1t is for humanity that such f the case, for should the nitrogen of ou atmosphere unite with the oxygen, tn chemists tell us that life on the eartl