Evening star., 1932-08-28

these things, at least, perform very I
functions.
Everybody knows now how teri
vital is the little bit of iodine in 4
bodies. Very recently it has been fd|
that trace of copper must be pre-
or iron will not function in hui
blood. When the little necessary tdI
of manganese was removed from
diet of experimental rats, the males
came sterile and the females could
longer suckle and rear their young.
THE point I want to make is
Food from the sea contains not only
major elements well understood I'd
necessary to the human body. I
perhaps especially rich in those
elements the functions of which are
yet fully understood"
At a recent meeting of the Engine
Club in New York, various mem
spoke on the subject, What DiscoV
Do We Need Most at the Present Tin
A famous scientist suggested that
greatest industrial need is a large
dependable source of manganese
is used in making strong, tough ST
nOn-corroding aluminium alloys, pc
alloy for transoceanic cables.
United States gets most of it's SUI
from Russia.
Harden Taylor rose to remark that
ineXhaustible supply lies right at
door The ocean covers an area of II
295, 600 square miles. Millions of squ|
miles of the bottom consists of
mud. 1t is blue because of the prese
of manganese compounds. There
nodules as big as walnuts, hens ej
base balls. Devise method to get |
manganese and America would be !
ever independent of foreign supply
"At the bottom of the ocean there
also some 275, ,O0O, 900 600 tons of nitrj
$4,000, ,000,0 tons of phosphate and
body knows how much iron, Alumni
nickel molybdenum, titanium, thallij |
strontium, barium, lead, cobalt, val
dunn and zinc. In the cold, dark oc{
abyss all those chemicals are deposi
that do not readily dissolve"
RUT that rich chemical soup, the
water itself, is another mine of
tential wealth. It's spiciest ingredie1
in the eyes of men, are probably q
and silver. According to some estimat
the gold in sea water might assay
high as $644, ,000, 900 to the cubic mild
Radium is far more rare and valua|
than gold. Sea water is suffcier|
radioactive" Harden Taylor went on,
indicate that it may contain from
to 10 grams of radium in cubic M
This would be worth from $3.50, ,0O0I
SIT, 100000.
How are we to get these things fr!
the sea? We do already get sodil
chloride common salt), magnesiI
chloride, bromine for tetraethyl Id
fused in ethyl gasoline), iodine, md
nesium hydroxide milk of magnesi|
alginic acid FUSED in making plastid
and during the war we got potassiu
How about the rest of the long list?
Right there, Harden Taylor thid
there is a new and wonderful opp|
tunity for practical research.
This latent wealth cannot be reed
cred, I believe, by crude methods.
seems to me that the solution of 1
problem will lie in a deeper probing ID
some aspects of the chemistry of lif(
that chemistry of sea life We have
ready talked about.
I'VE have seen that living organis|
are able to seize chemical elements fri
the water and use or deposit them
their bodies. Iodine is concentrated
seaweeds and, in fact, all living thir
in the sea. Oysters and other shelf
have some subtle process of mining ed
per and manganese from the wat
And so on.
rs it possible to discover how thu
%t,s Il Al