The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1918-04-02
WE'VE POTASH OF
our OWN, THANK YOU
THERE is A WHOLE MOUNTAIN
OF THIS IMPORTANT PROD
UCT OUT IN UTAH.

War is a great developer. War de-
velops character and brings out the
strong points in individuals, and it
develops the natural resources of a
country When the war cut off from
US the supply of potash we used to
get from Germany it was at first
the source of great expense to have
the price of this most useful chemical
raised from $40 to $500 a ton, and
it looked for a spell as if the lack
of potash might have us hooked up.
Potash, you may know, is an ingre-
dent of gunpowder and an essential
in fertilizers, and when a country is
at war if there are any two things.
it needs they are gunpowder and fer
tilizer. Without gunpowder you can't
get much Roadway at fighting; with
out fertilizer you can't raise food to
supply the bodies of the people
So it was natural that we should
view with alarm the shutting off of
our potash supply.
But, pshaw! There's nothing to it!
We've got potash enough if we only
go after it. We simply needed to be
walked up 1t is like the dye business
we had the coal tar products, we
had the skilled chemists, we had the
industrial facilities. All we needed
was the challenge, and we got to
work Now Germany will have to
hustle to find market for her dyes
here after the war. We simply didn't
make dyes before because we didn't
have to; it was so much cheaper and
easier to buy them abroad that we
let Fritz do it.
So it was with potash. You can
get potash from almost any vegeta-
ble Indeed, the name potash"
comes from the fact that folks used
to use a pot" in which to develop
the chemical from "ashes." In the
country they always used to have a
potash kettle, huge iron caldron,
employed once year to make I've
by leeching wood ashes, and then
they used the I've to make soap. We
have even gone so far as to make
huge, sea-going moving machines to
reap seaweed from the ocean bottom,
Seaweed is a prolific source of pot
ash, which the seaweed absorbs from
the ocean it grows in, the ocean that
laves the potassium beds of the deep
and constantly dissolves it.
Huge Mountain of Potash.
But lately there has been discover
ed in Utah an enormous deposit of
potash, which bids fair to be the hug
est supply of this mineral the world
has seen. There's a whole mountain
out there in the Cottonwood canyon,
near Marysvale, which Tom Gillian,
a prospector, found one day in his
travels, and from this we shall OBJ
tain all the potash we need for years
to come.
Travellers in the vicinity of. Marys-
vale have looked inquiringly recently
toward the magically growing village
out on the desert, near the base of
the lofty Tushar mountains, which
rear their white heads to a hight of
nearly $4,000 feet, and have wonder
ed at the strengthening machinery
moving over the stretch of road be-
tween Marysvale and the new village.
At the end of the village has risen
a group of odd-shaped buildings in
which hundreds of tons of machinery
have been placed and above which
Icon big smokestacks.
This is the home of the new Amer
lean potash industry unique in that
it is the first undertaking in extract
ing commercial potash from alunite,
until lately classed as rare mineral
Moreover, it is said to be the only
commercial producing potash plant in
the world outside of Germany. The
plant has commenced operation and
the initial run brought forth two
tons Of potash salts Analysing SO