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Show ' ' '-I'll ALMOST AS MUCH AS GOLD. Photography Has Twice Doubled the Price of Platinum. Tho Idea that tho spread of photography photog-raphy could do sovero injury to the trade in commercial fertilizers, and especially es-pecially to the conversion of raw phosphate phos-phate into plant food, scorns at first slghl absurd. Yot bo it Is, and In this way. Phosphates Phos-phates and bones, to bo mado available avail-able as soil improvers, must botroat-cd botroat-cd with sulphuric acid. Now sulphuric ncld will dissoivo most metals as easily eas-ily as water doos sugar. Platinum is almost tho only motal'upon which It has no effect. So, in splto of tholr great cost, manufacturers man-ufacturers havo gonerally omployod retorts mado of a platinum alloy for tho concentration of sulphuric acid. Thoso retorts used to bo mado In Paris and cost $8,500 to ?12,000 npieco. To-day such n thing as a platinum retort would cost literally n fortuno, for platinum, owing to tho Introduction Introduc-tion of tho platlnotypo process In photography, pho-tography, has gona up from about ?5 an ounce to the present prlco of $2Q an cunco It Is, indoed, nearly as costly cost-ly as gold. Stray Storlos. |