alijancv. iiRRAi.n, march aa, ion
Romance of Potash
Made by Nebraska Prairie Fire
New Assets of This State Developing Into Wonderful
Resources in Alkali Basins of Western Nebraska.
The potash Industry of western
Nebraska is receiving niuch publicity
these dnys. The dally papers and
the Sunday editions in particular
seem to be giving considerable space
to the telling of the romance of this
young industry. The Sunday World
Herald, In an article written by Ned
Aitchison, tells the story In the fol
lowing language:
Presto.
The prairie Ores which swept the
arid plains and left a heritage of al
kali lakes and basins in portions of
western Nebraska, made vast
stretches of fields of potash.
Prof. E. H. Barbour Is authority
for this explanation of the deposit
which is now being shipped to an
eager market in this and other coun
tries. Where once the red man care
lessly left his camp fire to sweep the'
dry stubble of the plain, potash was
born. Useless the attempt to raise
corn, wheat and potatoes there for
the Indian and pioneer Bet the ele
ments right for potash.
Now a ne windustry is created and
resources of big import are being un
covered In the much-despised alkali
teds.
It is difficult to couple romance
with the barren, sparsely-vegetated
regions in the sandhills of Sheridan
and Cherry county, yet the inspired
dreams of the fictlonist hardly rival
the story of the meteoric develop
ment of that Industry in so short a
time.
Prior to 1910, at the close o the
kng, dry summers, ranchmen used
to make a practice of scraping up,
bagging and shipping the dry salts
so abundant around Jesse and Rich
ardBO nlakes in northwestern Nebr
aska, forwarding them to Omaha to
be refined into sul soda. That is the
beginning of the recorded history of
the industry in this state
Two college youths, skilled in ge
ology and advanced chemistry John
Show, University of Nebraska, class
of '06. and Carl Modisett, class of
'09 were the first to recognize the
commercial possibilities of these salt
lakes. Investigations conducted dur
ing a two-year period starting in
1910. resulted in their filing mineral
claims on Jess lake and environing
government lands in 1912.
Thus occurred the real birth of
the industry one that seems destin
ed to be of utmost importance in en
abling America to realize the ambi
tion of national commercial inde
pendence from foreign lands. It
will help to solve the problems faced
by glass and soap manufacturers,
farmers and urtisanswho found their
supplies of essential chemleal-'pre-viously
imported from Gem any
cut off at the beginning of the Kur
opean war.
A Big Commercial Factor
In 1859. the nited States produced
$1,500,000 worth of potash, but the
production has steadily diminished
since that time until practically the
entire supply was being secured from
the great Stassfurt "mines" in Ger
many. During 1905, American soap
manufacturers used 4,235,000
pounds of potash, and glass work' is
4,000,000. This shows the import
ance of the chemical to industrial in
terests of the nation.
Alkali lakes of Nebraska are found
chiefly in Hrown, Cherry, Sheridan.
Dawes, Box Butte and Garden coun
ties. The largest and most numer
ous are in Cherry county, and the
richest and most promising, to date,
in Sheridan, according to the report
of an exhaustive survey Conducted
under the direction of Erwin lnck
ley Barbour, state geologist.
Credit is here given to Mr. Bar
bour and his assistants for the in
formation, including statistical ta
bles, etc., which is used in this arti
cle. There are many alkali lakes and
lakelets in the northwest quarter of
Nebraska, most of them being soda
lakes, and a few carrying Important
deposits of potash, also. These
lakes differ widely in their degree of
alkalinity, some being almost fresh,
others feebly alkaline and still oth
ers alkaline to the point of satura
tion. Many are important breeding
ground for wild fowl, and others are
well stocked with game fish.
They are regular in outline, most
ly circular, and vary from a few
square yards to several hundred
square acres. At the ordinary stage
of water, most of them have no out
let, being merely shallow evaporat
ing basins in which the alkaline wa
ters of the respective drainage areas
are caught and concentrated by solar
exaporation. During spring and
summer, they are usually full. Later,
many dry up. Some are perennial.
When dry the beds and shores are
white with alkali and the winds car
ry away clouds of alkali dust. This
is not necessarily lost, for it settles
nearby and is washed back by rains.
How Product Is Shipped
To recover from the waters of
these lakes the potash and other
chemicals involves a somewhat co n-
plicated and tedious process to re
duce the alkaline content of the
lakes to a heavy liquid, largely
through the medium of solar and
forced evaporation, and then to crys
tal salts by a further drying process.
Product of the several large plants
that have tprung up In Nebraska is
shipped either in the form of the
'the heavy liquid, which is about 4 5
per cent solids, in tank cars, or in
i "crystals," bagged and shipped in box
cars.
Kvery alkali lake cannot be koik
ed profitably, nor Is everyone equip
ped, however well disposed he may
be, to engage successfully in the un
dertaking. Few men have the requis
ite knowledge or the necessary capi
i tal. Lottl and exact technical train
ing, good business sense and ample
funds are necessary prequisites.
Condition ou Exploitation
"Indiscriminate exploitation of our
alkali resources is to be deprecated."
declares Prof. Barbour. "Everyone
should consider the Inexpediency of
precipitate haste in investing. Zeal
In these matters should be taken af
ter due deliberation and enreful com
petition, or not at all."
"In all mining operations, it is pos-
1 slble to count gains and losses well
in advance. Accordingly, Judgment
and accuracy supplant chance even
though the fascination of the lottery
Is forfeited. Those ownlnc alkali pro
perties of promise should have them
investigated, especially If potash Is
present. Prior to the capilization of
a company, a number of exact chem
ical analysis should be made and the
advice of engineers and commercial
chemists obtained. ThlsNkill prove to
be the least costly and Indeed, the
only rational mode of procedure."
Four of Nebraska's largest potash
companies have an authorized capi
tal of $675,000. Two of these con
cerns the Potash ProductB Co.. lo
cated at Hoffland, with main offices in
Omaha, and the Nebraska Potash
Works Co., at Antioch, a Denver en
terprise both have all of their capi
tal stock paid up.
A New Town on Pot.isli
A little city of some seventy build
ings h .s sprung up at Hoffland In the
wake of the Potash Products Co. The
plant Is located on the Burlington
railroad, about twelve miles east of
Alliance, at the edge of Sheridan
countv. Suitable switches and tracks
, have been laid to deliver supplies
and to shin the products. Tin com
pany, itself, has built boido twenty
bunk houscB, together with a hotel
and commissary for the seventy em
ployes. There 1b n well-equipped of
fice, drafting room and laboratory
adjoining the plant. The Burling
ton has built a small station and lo
cal trains stop there.
The Potash Products Co.. as now
constituted, was organized in 1915,
with home offices in Omaha, the cap
ital stock of $150,000 being fully
paid up. Officers of the company In
clude: President, T. E. Stevens; vice
president, Dr. Herman Reinbolt; sec
j retary, W. A. Kedick, all of Omaha.
With W. H. Austinberg and John W.
Show, these three constitute the dir
ectorate. Show and Carl Modisett,
who "discovered" the potash Indus
try, are managers of the plant.
Seven boilers of 150 horsepower
each have been Installed in the pow
' er house. About 100 tons of coal,
1 purchased from Wyoming mines. Is
'used daily. "Brine" the alkaline
lake water Is pumped from Iake
Jess, three miles south, through a
I 2 V4 inch and 4-inch pipe by electrically-operated
suction pumps, into the
i great solar evaporating tower where
one-seventh of the work of evapora
tion is effected.
j This tower, a frame structure 32
; feet long. 2 4 feet broad and 40 feet
; high, was erected by Show and Mod
I isett In 1912. The upper half con-
sists of a series of lattices and about
, twenty floors over which the water,
i in early experiments, was pumped at
a rate of 300 gallons a minute. By
solar evaporations, a noticeable con
centration of the brine was effected,
Prince Albert gives
smokers such
delight, because
its flavor is so different and so
delightfully good;
it can't bite your tongue;
it can't parch your throat;
you can smoke it as long and
as hard as you like without any
comeback but real tobacco hap-
piness!
On the reverse side of every Prince
Albert package you will read :
PROCESS PATENTED
JULY 30th, 1907 '
That means to you a lot of tobacco en
joyment. Prince Albert has always been
sold without coupons or premiums. Wo
prefer to give quality I
Albert
ay k J l.,uoda
the national joy amok
In goodness and
in pipe satisfaction
is all we or its enthusi
astic friends ever claimed
for it!
UOi'M. And a choory howdy-do on tap no
X matter how much of m at ranger yot$ are tn the
nock of thm wood a you drop into For, Prtnco
Albert is right there mt the rtr-t place you
pin that amlla tobacco ! I he toppy red
bag Mla for a mckml and the tidy rod
tin for a dime, then there ' a the hand
oomo pound and half-pound tin
humidota and the pound
cryetel (lata humidor with
apongo-moiatenar top
thai koopa the to
oacco tn tuch
bang up trim
all-tho-
ttanml
pa
It answers every smoke desire you
or any other man ever had! It is so
cool and fragrant and appealing to your
smokeappetite that you will get chummy with
it in a mighty short time 1
Will you invest 5c or 10c to prove out our say
so on the national joy smoke?
R. J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO CO, Win.ton-S.lem, N. C
TOBACCO IS PREPARED
FOR SMOKERS UMOERf HE
PROCESS DISCOVERED IN
MAKING EXPERIMENTS TO
PRODUCE THE MOST DE
LIGHTFUL AND WHOLE-
SOME TOBACCO FOR CIG
PROCSPAT E NT E 0
JULY WOT
IPMT
WhMMSmiiLKC.USA,
DOES MOT BITE THE 1QNCUE
TWa ia k r aa atafc f Haa
rnac. Aibart tM rod Urn. Rood
ani . . ..Jim. kai H
hi
"WANTED A table and three chairs, also
dishes and ice chest, need not be
new if in good condition"
ff Can you imagine how you'd go scurrying out to
the storeroom to look up "that old stuff out there" if
you thought you could get $4.00, $5.00 or $10.00 cash
for it?
Hut why wait till somebody comes and rins the bell and asks the question t Hundreds
of people "want three chairs," hundreds want a table, too, and dishes, and coffee pots, and
urns, and hall racks, and linoleum, and odds and ends of carpet, valises, trunks, suit cases,
stoves, cutlery, furniture, lamps, everything- you can think of.
H There's always a demand and a fair price (if you reach the actual buyers themselves),
and the. only way and the sure way to reach them is by a Herald Classified Ad. You can make
dollars out of your putaway-old-thing8 if you want to and even one ad will prove it.
Make up a list and try it and remember that
Rate Per Line 5 Cents
Classified Ads taken over the phone as well as in
person or by mail.
Phone 340
the evaporation amounting to 1,200
pounds an hour for a ten-hour day.
Divide the llaln
Advantage 1b taken of the high
evaporation at Jess Luke. Dikes
have been constructed to cut off the
eaBtern end of the lake, subdividing
it into evaporating basins, each hav
ing a capacity of several acres. When
the lake water is concentrated by so
lar evaporation to the desired degree,
the brine is pumped to the plant at
Hoffland.
Adjoining the tower on the south
is the distilling building equipped
with four great vacuum pans, cen
trifugal drier and other machinery.
After Kissing through the evaporat
ing tower, the brine is conveyed to
the vacuum pans at the rate of 4,000
gallons an hour, or 75.000 to 100,
000 gallons a day. according to con
ditions. The combined capacity of
these four vacuum pans i3 twenty
live to thirty tons a day.
In the (irst pan, the liquor iB boil
ed under pressure; in the second the
pressure is reduced, while in the
third is it boiled under a vacuum.
The fourth is used as a finishing
pan, the brine being converted Into
a heavy liquid carrying 4 5 per cent
solids.
Part of this is delivered into the
great storage tanks and part into fif
teen steel crystalizing vats. As
"salts in solution," the llqu'd is ship
ped in tank cars, while the salt crys
tals from the vats are bagged and
shipped in ordinary freight cars.
Output S2,HM a Day
The present output of clkali is re
ported to be thirty to forty tons a
day, worth $75 a ton, or a total daily
value exceeding $2,000. Daily ex
pense runs about $600- $200 or
more for coal, a similar amount for
labor and the balance for sundry ex
penses. When two additional driers
are Installed . the output will equal
or pass 100 tons a day, representing
a total value of $7,000 or more, ac
cording to prevailing juices.
The tlnal plan is to separate the
salts at the plant and thus get the
benefits of the high prices some of
them command. Although war pin
es prevail and a changeable market
makes quotations unreliable, prices
of some potash products have In
creased many fold, even several hun
dred per cent.
By way of comparison, Mr. Bar
bour in his report points out that in
certain regions men are glad to mine
gold running $2.50 a ton. A barrel
of brine from the eastern end of
Jess Lake is nearly equal In value to
a barrel of crude oil at , the market
price in 1914. Computation gives
100.000 tonB of alkali in Jess Lake,
worth $2,000,000 or $3,000,000.
til IK -runs I ollt .Tits
Detailed description has been giv
en of this plant at Hoffland because
it ia the oldest and most representa
tive it any of the companies thus far
organized. Other potash concerns
in the field, together with 'he per
sonnel of tbeir officers, include:
American Potash Co., Antioch,
Neb., capitalized at $150,000. Pres
ident, Arthur English; vice presi
dent, Wilson Lowe; secretary, Geo.
Mclntyre, and treasurer, A. Hall, all
of Omaha. A. J. Dunbar Is manag
er and general superintendent.
Nebraska Potash Works Co., Anti
och. Neb., capital $100,000 fully
paid-up. L. F. Hulen of Denver,
president ; D. B. Snyder, Denver, vice
president; B. I. Kibble. Alliance,
secretary-treasurer; A. H, Lowe,
manager and chief chemist. Alka
line water for this plant is obtained
from a series of lakes, of which Wil
son lake Is the most prominent. The
water is pumped through a 4-inch
pipe for a distance of one and a half
miles.
Hord Alkali Products Co., lake
side. Capital stock reported to be
$275,000. The plant utilizes alka
line waters of Cook lake, two and
a half milt's northeast, in Sheridan
county. Officers include Heber Hord,
Central City, president; W. F. Rich
ardHon, vice president; George K.
Locke, treasurer; Oeorge P. Blssell,
! secretary, and 1, W. Hutchison, as
sistant secretary.
Palmer Alkali Co., near Lakeside,
is owned and operated by J. H. Pal
mer, president of the concern.
Prairie Kires ami ! n
How came this' great quantity of
alkali to northwestern Nebraska?
Prof. Harbour answers; "The
close identity of old-fashioned lye to
the brine in Jess lake suggests an
origin from (he ash of prairie tires
and decay. The drainage area
around this lake Is extensive. The
prairies are covered throughout with
grasses, woods and shrubs, varying
from one-fourth to one ton an acre,
and when Bwept by prairie fires large
amounts of ash are produced. These
fires may have been of natural origin
or set by Indians to Btart game, or
by warriors to worst enemies. It is
not necessary to assume actual com-
Ibustion. Hotting or decomposing is
i oxidation or slow burning. In eitb-
I er process, ash results."
"Organic mutter dropped in the
open suffers complete combustion, in
that a portion passes into the air as
gas and a part is left as ash How
ever produced. the ash would be
learht-il by rains and snows. ami
w ished "as lye into the (tools and
lakes. Since these lakes are practic
ally without outlet, there is no waste
'and the alkali has been concentrated
through the centuries.
i "Hoffland is in the sandhill coun
try, where grasses huve a drought re
sisting or dune adaption. ThiB is the
short grass region where the vegeta
tion covering, though sufficient to
stabilize the Bandhills, and to re
press wind erosion, so excessive in
I pioneer days, 1b sparse and the aver
age yield an acre is light, perhaps a
fourth to a third of a ton.
I "Jess lake seems to '.iave a drain
age area of 10.000 or more square
ScrSS Accordingly, if the ash run
as low as ten or fifteen pounds to the
acre the total amount at the end of
a few hundred ftMtU would be large.
Six or eight centuries seems ample
for tin- saline enrichment of Jess
lake.
Industrial Value
Alkalis are essential to chemical
processes, fundamental to the arts
and therefore of utmost consequence.
Shortage of chemicals resulting from
the European war Is viewed by Prof.
Barbour as a warning that American
commercial chemistry has been ne
glected too long. In the matter of
potash, alone, manufacturers of
glass, soap, dye and the like, were
unexpectedly left with an Inadequate
supply. Even the farmer, who needs
It as a fertiliser for his fields, dis
covered the European supply sud
denly rendered unavailable.
Plants, like animals, need proper
ly balanced rations. Sometimes one
element of soil fertility Is lacking.
sometimes another. Successful asv
riculturists find what is lacking am
supply it. Among the elements m
stituting plant food, the chief an
nitrogen, phosphoric acid, lime, nia
nesla, Iron, silica and potash. All
of these except nitrogen, phospborf
acid and potaBh occur abundantly
nearly ull soils. Nitrogen, nearly al
ways deficient tn soils. Is the met
effective and expensive element "
plant food. Cheapest sources of pe
as h are muriate of potash and woe 4
ash. Most important is carnalHte.
found at Stassfurt, Germany.
Potash beds of great promise h y
been reported in i ia I. iiia and rern"
ly in Spain. Of all known som e
the great beds of Germany m pre
eminently the most important, es
penally those around Stassfurt. H T0
the potash is mined like rock. Tr'
enormous salt beds are several bu -dred
miles in extent and attain
maximum thickness of about 5,0'
feet.
Surveys of geologists under I'if-f
Barbour indicate that there are r
eral million dollars' worth ef a. salt
in Nebraska lakes, and thai cons4
ruble portion of this is recoverable
anmwok
OLD-TIME COLD CURE-
DRINK ROT T2A!
a--a as ai a ana1 a I aw. -a- . . . . . . . .-.. .
Qet a small package of Hamimrf
Breast. Tea. or sm tiie OertMM folk
call it, "Hamburger Hruat I lice." nt siy
pharmacy, lake a Ishlsspneaftll of ttt
ta. put a cup of UriUrg water usm
it. ixnir through H sieve and tTrkn
teacup full at auj tiuto dur;ng t
day or before retiring. It, is the m""
effective way to break a cold and est
grip. h it opeiiH tin- pon-s of the kir.
relieving r'l.nyestiun. AJsu loosens tbte
bofcela, tluii- breaking up a cold.
Try it the next tUM you ihiIkt fr t
a cold or the grip. It in iaexpSKtl
unci entirely vegetuhle, therefore nuttf
and liurntk-ss.
RUB RHEUMATISM
STIFF, ACHING JOINii
Bub Soreness from joints sad mi
with a small trial bottle of
old St Jacobs Oil
Stop "dosing" Rheumatism.
It's pain only; not one case in tity
requires internal treatment. Rub sneliV
ing, penetrating "St. Jacobs Oil" rtehS
on the "tender spot," and by the MiJt
you say Jack Robinson out corns tks
rheumatic pain. "St. Jacob's OU" la
a harmless rheumatism cure which
disappoint and doesn't burn the skfe
takes pain, soreness and stiffness
acU.'ng joints, muscles and bones;
.atica, lumbago, backache, neui
Limber up) Met a 25 cent
ef old-time, bonest "St Jacobs
trom any drug store, sad in a
you 11 be free from pains, aches
stiffness. Don't suffer 1 Rub rhss
i -in away.
TIN CAN SHORT AGS KKTOKTHP
Washington, D. C. Represeare
tivee of the National Camera' aare
clation told Secretary Redteld lb
a serious short. e of tin cans three
ened to reduce production of cans
food this year.
