Indiana daily times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1914-1922, 1920-12-27
WEALTH OF SEA
MUST ASSIST
WORLD SUPPLY
Raw Material for Industry.
Food and Agriculture in
Ocean Depths.

WASHINGTON, D. elf you want to
provide handsomely for your grandchn-
dren, you could not do better than TO
purchase some frontage on the ocean.
winch Is CT no present value for Wharfage
ore anything like that, but will give con-
troI OF considerable area Of the sea.
For the sea is rapidly becoming vaIua-
pie. A careful scientific look a thousand
years or so into the future, such as Mr.,
IL e. Wells is addicted to, would I'M
doubtedly show men depending upon the
sea as much as upon the land If NOT
more, for the materials by which they
live. Indeed 1t will be impossible to sun
port the enormous populations of the
future without drawing heavily upon the
ocean, which is now a wilderness of great
wealth that men have just begun to ex-
plore.
Fish, of course, are the most obvious
ana readily available product Of the sea,
ana the only one that we use to any
considerable extent And we use only a
traction of what we might. There are
whole families of fishes that are never
caught, vast levels of the ocean swarm
Ing with life that fishermen have never
reached.
The Department Of Agriculture for
example has an experimental kelp-pot-
ASH plant at Summerfield, Cal, which is
said already to have proved self-support-
ing. Not only the invaluable fertilizing
element, potash, Is obtained, but also a
number Of by-products. including iodine.
common salt, ammonia and bleaching
carbon. This bleaching carbon was for
meriy imported from Europe and sold
for 20 cents a pound, but has been pro-
duced at this plant at Is cents a pound,
and is said to pay for its own produc-
ton and that Of the potash Some nj
trogen, most precious fertilizer of all, is
also recovered in the form Of Ammonia,
and kind Of tar, kelp oil and creosote
are minor by-products.
Here is what promises to be a con-
siderable industry, with a variety Of pro-
ducts, founded on a single class of sea
plants. And it has enormous Resources
to draw upon, for the giant kelp grows
in great groves all through the Pacific
waters, and Is far richer in potash than
the Atlantic kelps, which have been re-
duced by burning In small quantities for
some time
A Norwegian scientist has made an
elaborate study OF the sea water as a
source OF raw material for Norwegian
Industry, and he Is said to have shown
that It is practicable to extract metallic
magnesium from the sea water on
commercial scale, as well as gypsum,
common salt and other minerals.
You must remember In this connection
that the sea water contains all minerals
In solution an inevitable result Of the
way the oceans were formed The earth.
according to the scientists, was origi-
nGlly a hot incandescent mass Of vapor
containing all the elements of which
earth, sea and atmosphere are now COM
posed. AS it cooled the earth formed in
molten mass. water formed and fell
upon this in boiling torrents making
the Fess, which therefore had ali of the
elements in solution In them Three
fourths Of these salts are common salt
or sodium chloride All OF the European
continent that lifts above the sea level
Is only One-third in bulk what the COM
mon salt in the s7a alone would be If 1t
were taken out. There is a mass there
fore, nearly as large as Europe Of other
salts, including those of all the min
erals. There are, for example, only 10
or 50 milligrams of gold to the ton of
sea water, but it has been estimated that
II all OF the gold in the sea could be ex-
tracted there would be about $1,000
pounds Of it for each inhabitant Of the
earth.
The ses. in word, is vast mass of
raw materials OF all kinds-Organic and
Inorganic. 1t contains forests and
meadows and vast quantities of life. The
sea DEOuuCeS meat as wei as lSu, inT
the whales and PROPOSES, not to men
Non the great family OF seals and sea
lions which spend practically their
whole lives IN the water, are warm
blooded animals. AS far as we can
learn, none Of the vegetable products Of
the sen are used for food, but there
must he edible sea vegetables and II
this is so, man could sustain himself
entirely on a diet derived from the sea
He could also obain from 1t almost all
OF the inorganic and many OF the or
ganic materials for his industry. Fur
thermore, It Will supply him with the
power needed TO manufacture these
things. Science has long reco gnized
that both the tides OF the sea and the
waves are potential sources of almost
unlimited power. They have been ex-
perimentally used for the production OF
power on a small scale and 1t is prob
able that nothing but the lack OF neces-
sity prevents a practicable development.