The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 12, 1918, Page 4

How Nebraska Turns Brine Into Gold A Great Potash Industry Has Been Built Up Since the Opening of the World War—By Ralph L. Harmon - GES ago, so the geologists say, the vast masses of mineral rocks underlying the Rocky mountains were exposed to the weather, and through centuries of wind, freezing and sunshine, were broken up and their rich mineral contents carried away by streams flowing eastward. These streams depos- ited their treasure-laden silt along the now level stretches on the western side of the Mississippi basin and in the course of many ages the great plains of Nebraska and Kansas had been built up, full to bursting with minerals that the world would one day need and pay for with sweat and blood and fatigue. But while nature was filling this larder for man’s use, man knew nothing about it, and perhaps the larder had been well filled some thousands of years be- fore the first prehistoric men set foot upon North America. These treas- ures might have lain hidden for countless cen- turies more, had not the wind and water, always workmg over the face of the earth as though the job was never done, again begun to expose them. The wind scooped great hollows in the plains, the rains washed down the sandy soil, the underground waters streamed like full arteries through millions of acres of hidden earth and sand, pouring their richness into the basins, the sun evaporated the water, and in the course of time some of this mineral was deposited in the muck at the bottoms of these ponds or lakes. DISCOVERED BY YOUNG ENGINEERS As the lakes dried up under the fierce sun, their receding edges left broad margins of mineral crusts around them, and the water that was not evapor- ated became denser and denser, turning to brackish brine that was shunned by cattle and by man as the essence of all that was useless and dreary. What could be more unlovely than these shallow lakes filled with stinking water, swarmed over by millions of flies and infested with hideous, darting bugs and crawling things? Two or three generations of men had settled and lived upon these plains paying the state for the privilege of herding their cattle where the grass grew around these lakes, and only wishing that every puddle would vanish and in its place would come the succulent grass that turns cattle into beef and beef into money. Then along came a couple of young fellows from the University of Nebraska. They had studied chemistry and belonged to that great army of workers called engineers. Engineers may run lines across the country, study the mysteries of chemistry, the art of constructing all manner of things, but whatever they do, engineers are al- ways digging away at hard problems and hard jobs. These two young fellows decided they would find out what those worthless looking, desolate ponds were good for out in the sandhill region of western Nebraska. They fought the summer flies, -trudged and plodded over the alkali plains, put up with farmers, A potash lake with its fringe of crusted salts left by the retreatmg water, due to heavy evaporation. contended with abominable roads, dug around in _the muck, bottled up the smelling water, scraped the crust from around the slimy ponds—and in so doing they unlocked the door to nature’s larder, the larder she had filled for man’s use against ‘the time of stress and famine. They found potash! What is potash good for? Plants won’t grow without it. Dozens of things. The most fertile A view of Antioch, Sheridan county, Neb., with several large potash reducing plants. fields will shrivel and their crops will wither with- out potash. In the complex arts of modern life the salts refined from the crude minerals popu- larly called “potash” find endless uses, and in the art of war it is a necessity. THE IMPORTANCE OF POTASH The world is always hungry for potash. It is so hungry that the seaweeds are mowed and dragged up from the bed of the ocean by shiploads to be. burned that their potash may be recovered. It is so hungry that the desert plains of the southwest- ern United States are being prospected in the.hopes that a new Eldorado of potash may be discovered as. the Eldorado of gold was discovered in 1849. The world is so bungry for potash that when the kaiser and his war lords decided the time had come to strike for world dominion, they gloated in the thought that.through skilful cunning Germany of all nations had become the potash preducer, and they would starve the world for potash until it sunk trembling and faint at the knees of the Ger- man troops and chemists. So potash is a prize, and never a more sought “prize than now. Fortunes are in search of it and fortunes are to reward the successful searcher. The keenest minds, the best trained engineers, are all alert for potash. When these Nebraska uni- versity students led the way to Nebraska's un- touched mines of potash some eight or nine years ago there were men ready at the sound of the gong to plunge into development. Today faster than the people of Nebraska are awakening to their rich natural heritage in potash little groups of her thrifty and foresighted citi- zens, and citizens of other states, are organizing companies and building plants to turn this rich heritage into profits for themselves. And as fast as this splendid resource is moulded into private fortunes, it is passing out. of the grasp of the great Nebraska public 1,280,000 strong—and yet this public owns as a birthright some of the finest - potash lakes in the sandhill region. WILL NEBRASKA MISS ITS OPPORTUNITY? Of nearly 38,000,000 acres of school land once owned by the people of Nebraska, 1 ,650,000 acres still remain in possession of the state, and over large portions of this are dotted the shmy little lakes with their salty margins, reeking in wealth for the pumping. For all it takes is pumping. Of course, it takes money to buy the pumps, but the people of Ne- braska are wealthy. They could well afford to invest a few ‘dollars in some pumps of their own and pump from thelr own waste waters the riches YAGB FOUB ,‘(.:.u 7 that are now being pumped into the bulging pock- ets of private lessees, or lying idle. Nebraska is certainly growmg no richer while her wealth is mined away. She is growing poorer, for the processes that filled her soil with potash ceased centuries ago. There is just so much potash in her soil and when that is gone the eupboard is empty. Unless she awakens soon and takes an aggressive, constructive attitude, this souree of public wealth will be ex- hausted. Scores of individuals are growing immensely wealthy mining Nebras- ka’s potash from state ‘and privately owned lands. The state eould have those riches for all her citizens, should have them. Nebraska, eould build better roads, cut her taxes, increase her war efficiency by employ- ing engineers as good as those employed by pri- vate corporations; by putting to work machin- ery no better; and turn- ing into the state treas- ury the other seven- eighths instead eof the paltry one-eighth royalty she now derives under leasing regulations. So rich are these lakes that there are mearly a dozen big companies now operating pumping plants or building plants that will soon be in eperation, to say nothing of numerous smaller operators. These plants are owned by companies eapitalized all the way from $10,000 to half a million, and the plants themselves run in cost from 31000 to as high as $200,000. So rich are these lakes that in ome eight-day pumping period last summer a private eompany drained from one state-owned lake $25,006 worth of potash water! This water was drained through a lake owned by Nebraska into another privately owned lake on which the plant was loeated, and the wealth extracted from that one eight-day job was $50,000. Half of this belonged to the state and officials took the matter into court to deter- mine their rights. SLIPPING INTO PRIVATE HANDS Many of the lakes, mclndmg Jesse lake, re- garded as the finest of all, are owned by pnvate persons or corporations that have been buying them up rapidly in the last two or three years. Most of the plants are in Sheridan coumty, in the western part. of the state, and the two eenters about which operations are grouped are the towns of Antioch and Lakeside. Some prospeeting is being pushed and some pipe lines are being extended into Box Butte and Morrill counties and in a short time the country on both sides of the Olnmgo, (Continued on page 14) ‘Here is a sandhill lake fringed with reeds and rushes, one of the type that yields little er no potash. beside alkali or potash lakes, and fresh water wells can be dug by the -margin of potash lakes and sometimes are obtained by boring through the bot- tom of the lake bed itself to reservoirs below. In such instances by casing off the lake water the o fresh water rises above the surl‘ace “ of the potash lake. There are some fresh ‘water lakes right