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Show Scene '77 j mug nr mm w n Mill ) ir' I mm mm WW w m w M f J 14 V THURSDAY, OCT. 13, 1977 i By Volkmai Wentzel National Geographic reach Salt once was traded ounce tor ounce WITHOUT SALT the body goes into with gold. As the Roman statesman convulsions, paralysis, death. Blood Cassiodorus observed, "Some seek not cells in a salt-fre- e fluid burst. gold, but there livest not a man who does not need salt." The salt that keeps man alive does The Romans knew what they were the same for industry as the most talking about. The humble saltshaker essential of all raw materials, reports on the modern dinner table contains Gordon Young in the September National Geographic. the very essence of life. A blend of sodium and chlorine, salt Only a pinch of salt, perhaps S of water the percent of the world's annual producregulates exchange between human cells and the surroundtion, ends up as a seasoning on the ing fluid which carries food in and dinner table. Most of it pours into wastes out. Sodium is involved in chemcial plants where it leads the five muscle contraction, including heartmajor raw materials used by industry: beats; in nerve impulses; in the salt, sulfur, limestone, coal, and g digestion of protein. petroleum. Salt has some 14,000 indus road to Timbuktu plods through the sere countryside of Mali. In the Africa desert seasoning remains a precious staple and can still be used as money. Priced at only pennies in other parts of the world, salt is still invaluable. It literally keeps people alive, and does the same for their industry as the most essential of raw materials. Salt has approximately 14,000 industrial uses. SALT CARAVAN on the feet below the surface of the 650 earth. A seed company sends down a bag or two of each new strain it develops so no surface light may annihilate the strain. Corporations store vital papers, micro- film documents, product formulas. One also keeps folding cots and a food supply, for use in case of nuclear war. Other treasures salted away include more than 100,000 reels of classic films such as "Gone With the Wind," Bibles, furs, paintings, stamp and coin collections, and wedding dresses. "FOR A FLAT FEE," says one of the company's executives, "we'll store a bride's wedding gown for 21 years. The salt air will preserve it perennial 50 percent humidity and 68 degree temperature. Her daughter can get married in it. Then, who knows, it may go underground again for the next body-buildin- trial uses, more than any other material. and SALT PICKLES cucumbers metals; helps pack meat, can vegetables, cure leather, make glass, bread, butter, cheese, rubber, wood generation." Men have credited salt with qualities far beyond price for many generations. pulp. or broken down into As salt it goes into It betokens wit, wisdom, virility, hospsodium and chlorine Homer dubbed it gargles, textiles, and rocket fuels; itality, sanctity. hailed it as "a Plato "divine"; cosmetics, paints, pharmaceuticals, substance to dear the gods." And "Ye and photography; soaps, dyes, cerare the salt of the earth," the Bible, exand adhesives, amics, batteries, says. plosives. With salt among the earth's most The freezing point of a saturate abundant minerals and priced today at C 21 lower that than solution degrees pennies pound, it's difficult to per makes rock salt an of fresh water excellent refrigerant, snow melter, believe it was once so precious and and freezer of ice cream. And liquid created so many legends. sodium cools nuclear reactors. BUT ANCIENT man had only limitThe wastes from nuclear reactors ed access to it in the form of brine that may ultimately be stored in salt beds bubbled scarce surface deposits, deep beneath the surface of the earth. and someup, bay salt. Rising sea levels Their dryness, ability to withstand ten feet in the first millenia B.C. and 800 earthquakes, and a melting point of A.D. drowned coasts and solar salt degress C make salt deposits the safest pans, causing salt famines. nuclear graveyards, scientists con product-- DrilUei:KSinl'ofJJ.S. tend. , ion comes from brine wells 750 feet-dee- p had to wait for technology. SALT ALREADY serves as a vartf Even then it was unpredictable. To able storage facility. The world's their disgust, early salt drillers somenear warehouse Hutchinson, biggest times brought up Kan., was carved from a worked-ou- t black stuff "of no conceivable sticky the Owned mine. a of salt by portion use whatever." Comand Vaults Storage Underground The "worthless" goo was oil. pany, its 300 acres of storage bays b I. . it '! . II 0 ti nasty-smellin- g, Mopeds termed hottest things on wheels seeking fast starts and high speeds. At a top speed of about 30 miles an hour, the moped can't always keep up with a bike. But the moped operator, who has no gears to shift and only has to pedal on steep hills, perspires a lot less than the bicyclist. Mopeds aren't all that newfangled. Europeans have found them the way to d War II days,, when go since fuel and cars were scarce. Capitalizing on America's energy crisis, European manufacturers began in 1975 to pour thousands of dollars into moped promotions in the United States. Thirty companies now market mopeds in this country. "Sales double every month," said Richard Armstrong of the Columbia Manufacturing Company in Westfield, Mass., the only American manufacturer of the moped. The company, the first to build bicycles in the United States, began research on mopeds during the 1973 Arab oil embargo. More and more Americans are being lured from their automobiles by the ' the hottest thing on two wheels motorized pedal bicycle. . At 200 miles to the gallon of gas, the moped, as it is known, leaves economy cars at the gas pump. And mopeds cost only $300 to $500. The moped is a bicycle with a one- - or engine attached. With the push of the starter button and a little pedaling by the operator, the engine buzzes into moped's action. A hand throttle controls speed. post-Worl- er Tl WW I tl fi . f) 0 two-stro- rr M, t ""THE VEHICLE has really caught on," Ed Kaufman of the Motorized Bicycle Association told the National Geographic Society. He says mopeds are usually used for commuting or errands. I - S LV IjlJiHiinnjijo Ijijiiinmiji" 1 Crazy Costumes About 70,000 mopeds were sold in the United States in 1976 the association ld says, and sales this year may reach 100,000 to 200,000. The moped has not attracted cyclists J3 niDnaOT ) for Ijkirnriii" II hu U - 30-0- 6 W,mll AMMO spA From Frankenst All '' (l ffi ' II n "..Mi Other Ammo (l n 30 In Stock Off 10 MACTICE AMMO H Inn 1mm 303 Rifles Shotguns - Pistols it V Box Smith And WetionOrDKB 4 AS Free Candy7 Per 99 an will e -- 'X Hunting Knives R.d.c.a QlHII M MILE V Mkll hhihJi ffiviin damn iUUJi Flooroicont Vests 49 Hentinf, licenses I r Mr, 7, ? Gvnsmithing Register For Free Guns THE TRADES DFM 434 S. Main 0penFrl-l-6f.m- . ien - 752-100- Sat-11-- 6 4 p.m. . f |