Show marysvale Marys vale potash property REAPER UTAH the po poll tash lash plant of the mineral products company at marydale maryvale Mary Alary vale will begin operation on september 27 according to H F chapel of new york president of the company mr chapel and james A lane local manager of the company were in richfield wednesday in speaking of the future of the com banys plant mr chapel said the process of manufacturing potash is purely experimental nothing like it has ever been attempted before and the source of the potash alunite is not a positive quantity inasmuch as no one in the world knows anything about it the concern which built the plant at marysvale Marys vale however feels confident that the alunite exists in sufficient quantities to manufacture the potash amr chapel said in fact we are so sure of it that we have invested more than a million dollars in the utah plant and are prepared to invest more if the experiments prove a success 11 in explaining why the manufacturing of potash is entirely experimental mr chapel said laid no one has ever manufactured potash before and for that reason alone the manufacturing of this product would be an experiment we know from several chemical experiments that a product can be manufactured from alunite such as exists to a greater or less extent in marysvale Marys vale that has the same chemical properties as potash we have not lio however wever any dipre to follow in the manufacture of true chemically pure potash no one knows how this alunite occurs no one has ever known it to occur except at marysvale Marys vale and no one is able to give any definite information on its formation does es it occur in veins or does it appear ill n pockets this is a question that no one ian answer conclusively many mineralogists can expound theories regarding the formation and try to prove them B but ut I 1 have never heard one that I 1 could not undermine with a few minutes of conversation in attempting to locate the alunite you could dig several trenches a hundred feet apart and might manage to locate the deposits even then you could not give any definite description as to its formation you might think you had located a vein of the deposit and again you might hit several products of the mineral prior to the discovery of alunite at Marys marysvale vale the entire united states had been hunted over for some source of potash in 1913 the department of agriculture issued a bulletin in which it was stated that kelp a sea weed that grows in water 50 to feet deep would be the source of american 1 potash the gathering of kelp is slow tedious and expensive and the returns small but with the discovery of alunite at marys vale the idea of manufacturing potash from kelp was abandoned with the possible exception of california where kelp is used to a L small extent to furnish fertilizer for home consumption with the opening of the plant at marys vale southern utah is again brought to the worlds notice and the people of this state should be interested in this discovery because it means more than the discovery of a gold nine mine with the opening of this plant a staple business is started which will improve with ng ag the more the local plant does the more efficient the operators will become in the manufacture of potash and it does not take much of a stretch of imagination to see the marysvale Marys vale potash become a more efficient fertilizer than the gernian german product with the result that we may sometime in the future export even to the land of the kaiser utah made potash marysvale Marys vale alunite is a valuable efficient fertilizer in the raw state theoretically this is not true actually it is true and its beneficial effect when applied as a fertilizer ti has been demonstrated beyond a doubt the bureau of soils in washington whose business it is to test fertilizers reports ithac the marysvale Marys vale raw alunite contains more effective fertilizers than ithan the commercial potash that we have been importing hence it follows when the alunite of southern utah has been treated it will prove by far to be more efficacious than the potassium sulphate sulp haite with which we are familiar the manufacture of potash will mean a great deal commercially the world today is dependent on germany for its output of potash the united states alone pays the annually for the potash used in this country if one tenth of this is paid for the marysvale Marys vale product it will mean considerable to the state of utah generally and particularly to marysvale Marys vale and piute diute county during these days when everyone is crying buy american made goods it is safe to say that the greater portion of the potash used in this country will be the made in utah brand |