The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-05-26

stem, which is much like long stick of macaroni to the high tide surface of the ocean and there develops into a float in the shape and size of a sm1Jl empty watermelon. From this float gigantic leaves spread out over She
 surface like field of pond lilies and sometimes impeding navigation. This
 plant is known as kelp. It feeds upon
 the water and absorbs the potash. When the plants are taken out and dried about one-fourth of their con- tents is chloride of potash
 The department of agriculture has surveyed several hundred square miles os these kelp fields off .he coast of California and the bureau of soils has erected an experimental plant al sum nlcrland, to determine the best meth ods of harvesting the kelp and ex-
 trs cting the potash. Three or four large companies have been formed which have turned out a produce of several thousands tons of potash dur. ing the past year. One of these is the Hercules Powder company, whos2 plant has d capacity of 1900 tons of wet kelp per day, and another, Swift X Go, which ships it's product to it's fertilizer plants in the east So far the output of pot ash from the kelp fields has disap- lpoiated the operators.
 | The story of the potash We are get ting as a bX-product from our cement mills and iron ore furnaces is more gratifying. In fact, it is so enooura ging that the experts believe that if all our cement mills were equipped with by | product plants they could annually
 save more than s0oo0 tons of potash.
 and that. with slight change of oper- ation, this amount might be so in creased that it would equal one half of | the supply we have been importing l from Germany. Wnis potash would come l from the Hue dust which has been floating away on the air from the chim- lneys of the cement mills poisoning
 much of the vegetation about. I.
 comes from materials that in most mills
 are still going to waste and whose say
 ing would greatly better the conditions nearby.
 In fact, the origin of the invention 1 for saving this potash came from the 1 injury done to the orange trees by
 the dust from cement plant at River
 side in southern California. This plant
 was making Portland cement in large quantities, and the dust from Is chim- | news so affected the citrus fruit or@
 chards nearby that thei" owners ] brought damage suit after damage suit. At first the company tried to
 buy up the orange groves, but trey
 cou,d not take in all of the adjoining territory, and they finally sent for MT, | r. G. Cottrell, who is now the chief
 metallurgist of the bureau of mines l of the geological survey and asked l him to experiment on getting rid of
 the dust. He succeeded in doing so ] by means. of electricity and upon exam | ination found that the dust contained
 a large amount of potash, which could
 he easily saved. He found that more
 than two pounds of potash ware lost I in making each barrel of cement and
 that this was carried away in the dust
 of the flues. The total loss of otash ] iG the kilns was more than II .000
 pounds every day. The saving by this
 new process was so great that at the lftgh prices brought about by the war 1 the by-prduct potash of the plant prom
 ieed to bring in even more money than
 the cement itself. The process was introduced in 1913 and since then a Large amout of potash has beer saved l Ire Security Lime and Cement plant
 near HageHstown, Md. has recently in-
 stalled the Cottrell process and Is ,v- 1 ing almost 6000 pounds of potash a 1 day.
 | There is more potash in some of the rocks used for making Portlanl ce-
 ment than in others. The bureau of
 soils has analysed the materials used
 in the hundred or more cement plants ] of the country, and it finds that every