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into pure nitric acid, leaving only a waste of five per cent. This is a truly noteworthy achievement in industrial economics.

For the manufacture of the nitrate of lime, calcium is the reagent employed, the attack of the nitric acid upon this substance producing a concentration of the nitrate. This operation is carried out in a series of open vats made of granite containing pieces of calcium varying in size from five to eight inches in diameter. Carbonate of lime is used in limited quantities in this process for the purpose of completely neutralizing the acid and to give an extraction of neutral nitrate of lime. This latter action takes place in four super-imposed vats or tanks, the neutralizing action being carried out in the uppermost receptacle upon the new calcium. The liquid is displaced automatically from one tank to the other and when the operation is completed there results a dissolved neutral nitrate of lime which is drawn off and carried to an evaporating vat.

The concentration of this liquid is effected partly by the aid of the vapor which results during the cooling of the gas immediately after its escape from the electric furnace, as already described, and partly direct. The temperature of the solution is raised until it attains 145 degrees Centigrade, at which point a liquid containing a concentration of seventy-five to eighty per cent of calcium nitrate possessing from 13.2 to 13.5 per cent of nitrogen is produced. The product is then discharged into metal casks and is then solidified by cooling. It is

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also possible to produce at these works a basic nitrate of lime by adding to the dissolved calcium a certain proportion of live lime. After cooling the product is broken up and sifted. This basic nitrate contains about ten per cent of nitrogen. It must be understood that although the foregoing description relates to the production of nitrate of lime, the nitrates of soda and potash can be produced with equal facility. It is the low cost of the lime as compared with the soda and potash which has resulted in the application at Notodden of the process to the conversion of the nitric acid into calcareous nitrates.

With the present plant in operation at Notodden it is possible to produce with each of the electric furnaces 250 tons of nitric acid, which is equivalent to 325 tons of calcium nitrate or 337 tons of nitrate of soda, per year. Consequently the total output of the plant per annum

THE BIRKELAND-EYDE WORKS AT NOTODDEN.

Here nitrates are being successfully produced from the atmosphere. Total

energy 2,500 horse-power.

is equivalent to approximately 1,000 tons of Chilian saltpeter. Owing to the complete success that has attended the operations so far it has been decided to carry out considerable extensions to these works, the scheme comprising an installation of thirty furnaces which will enable an annual production of 20,000 or 25,000 tons of calcium nitrate to be maintained. For the necessary energy a large generating station is to

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be erected upon the river near by, the available waterfall to be thus harnessed being capable of furnishing some 30,000 horse-power. The process is also to be developed in Sweden and Germany, though in regard to the latter country some difficulty may be encountered in connection with the obtaining of sufficient cheap water-power since the topographical features of Germany are deficient in this respect, whereas in Norway and Switzerland, there abound numerous waterfalls of varying horsepower and which can be easily and cheaply harnessed.

It would appear therefore that the grave danger confronting the agricult

ural world and to which Sir William Crookes pertinently referred owing to the insufficient supplies of nitrates from natural sources for fertilizing purposes is possibly to be averted. The two Norwegian scientists who have evolved this latest process for producing artificial nitrates from the atmosphere have succeeded in overcoming the difficulties which proved insurmountable to previous investigators in the same realm of applied science, and once the system has emphasized its commercial practicability from a financial point of view, extensions in all parts of the world for supplementing the nitrate supplies obtainable from South America are inevitable.

Mountain Haze

The purple shadow of an angel's wing

Is flung across the range and softly creeps Adown the mountain-side; the rocky steeps Are blurred with veils of amethyst that fling Their filmy folds 'round barren spots that cling To jagged slopes; the yawning canyon keeps Fond tryst with Dusk, the windless forest sleeps, With naught save one fair, long line lingering.

So, when the angel-shadow falls on me,

And from Life's landscape I am blotted out, Ne'er to return to my accustomed place, In Memory's haze let my shortcomings be Concealed, forgotten, but may no one doubt That I the line of beauty sought to trace. -CLARENCE URMY.

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HE long fight over the famous Bering Sea seal fishery is again about to be reopened diplomatically, and this fact once more directs popular attention to an industry which has been the subject of more literary productions -in prose and poetry, fact and fictionthan any other marine pursuit known to man in modern times. Kipling has immortalized it in his "Rhyme of the Three Sealers," Jack London in the "Sea Wolf," and a host of lesser penmen have made it the theme of their writings; and an international arbitration at Paris in 1892 provided such a number of publications on its more technical features as would form a library in themselves.

These fur-seals of the north Pacific differ in many essentials from the hairseals of the north Atlantic. The pelts

of the former make the valuable sealskin sacques of the women of fashion, while those of the latter are converted into her dainty gloves, footwear and pocketbooks. The fur-seal herds on rocky Alaskan islets and brings forth its young on these flinty foreshores, then swims for thousands of miles through the surrounding ocean, pursuing its favorite food. The hair-seal herds on the naked ice-floes off Labrador, drops its, offspring into a snowy bed there, and when the southspeeding floes are melted by the Gulf stream, takes to the water and vanishes, its movements for ten months of the year being unknown. The fur-seal's skin is today worth $125, requiring four to make a lady's coat, and the annual kill is about 40,000. The hair-seal's hide fetches but $25.00, is turned to a variety of purposes, and the annual catch is about 300,000.

It is estimated that the number of seals

taken in the Pribyloff Islands between 1870 and 1900 was about 2,200,000, and by pelagic hunting in Bering Sea during the same period about 700,000 more. Since 1890 the catch had been much reduced through the seal herds being depleted by killing them with guns, spears and other weapons. The total value of the seals taken from these Alaskan waters in thirty years by the Alaskan company and independent operators must have exceeded $30,000,000, and as the United States paid only $7,000,000 for Alaska itself in 1867, it is easy to see what a good bargain that transaction was for the fur companies. At the annual sale of seal skins in London in December, 1905, some 18,000 skins were sold at an average price of $100 a skin. The prices show a high water mark, and none but a millionaire can afford to buy these garments in the future. The supply has reached its lowest level, there being only 40,000 fur seal skins throughout the world.

The slaughter of the fur-seal is a

cruel and ghastly business. Two methods are generally employed-the surrounding or "driving" them on land and clubbing them on the head, or spearing them in the water, the latter being the "pelagic" fishing frequently referred to in the press and diplomatic dispatches relating to this industry. The killings on the land are only possible where rookeries exist, and therefore can only be legitimately practiced by the lessees, who hold concessions over the islands where the seals herd. The Canadians, as their country possesses no rookery, have to prosecute the pelagic sealing exclusively, and this they can do legally unless they invade the closed area fixed by the Paris Arbitration of 1892 around the Pribyloff Islands.

By the hired employees of the sealing company the creatures are killed by first driving them-young seals preferablyfrom from the rookery to the "killing grounds" inland grounds" inland where they can be slaughtered conveniently to the salt houses where the skins are pickled, and

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The Indians make rapid work of this process, removing the skins on the ground where the seal is killed.

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skinned as they lie, but the chief killing is done as stated, the men stunning their victims by means of blows on the head and then removing the skins by means of a sharp knife. There is no doubt the seals are often skinned alive. Many hunters claim it is easier to remove the pelt in that way, as in the poignant agony the creature suffers it draws its muscles away from the sharp steel, which tears away the flesh from the hide, so that the seal assists in parting with its own coat.

Scarcely less horrible is the pelagic sealing, in which open sea pursuit of them, the most wanton, indiscriminate killing of old and young, male and female, goes on. It is not until after the "pups" are about a week old that the mother ventures out to sea in search of food. After feeding she usually lies on

escape but die a slow death in the water after, and are lost, with their skins, the fear that the industry is destined to speedy extinction is by no means an unreasonable one. This is the cause that inspires the frequent demands for a revision of the sealing regulations of the Paris award and the advocacy in some quarters of the internationalizing of the seal herds and the killing of a prescribed number annually.

The schooners are stout, stanch, wooden crafts, many of them built in Maine or Nova Scotia and sailed round Cape Horn to Vancouver to be employed in this industry. They are crewed largely by Newfoundlanders and Cape Bretoners who cross the continent to engage in the pursuit, being attracted by the pecuniary advantages offered, undismayed by the perils of the sea or the hazards of such

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