MAKING THE DEAD SEA LIVE.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 August 1925, Page 3

MAKING THE DEAD SEA LIVE.

The area of the Dead Sea, quite one of the “deadest” snots on earth, is shortly to become a centre throbbing with life and industry. The Crown Agents for the Colonies have already invited applications for rights to recover its chemical wealth for sale to the world’s markets, says E. AA. Poison in the London “Daily .Mail.” The Dead Sea, about the same size as the Lake of Geneva and lying over a thousand feet below the level of the Mediterranean, is so crammed full of chemical salts that it is quite impossible for a man to sink in it. Swimming in its waters is a most difficult process, as there is a great tendency for the feet to rise above the surface; but floating is possible in every conceivable position. Bathers can actually sit in the water, read a book and hold up a sunshade at the same time. No fish can live in the Dead Sea and its neighbourhood has the most desolate appearance imaginable. Soon all will he changed. Chemical factories and storehouses, run by electricity, will take the place of a few broken-down sheds inhabited by antique boatmen, and the near future will see an electric railway running up the Jordan Valley for the transport of chemicals to the sea at Haifa. The Dead Sea contains no less than thirty billion tons of mixed salts, of which about ten billion tons are common salt. The remainder is composed of potassium chloride, magnesium bromide, and other materials. With one and a half billion tons of potassium chloride, Palestine is the richest country in the world tor potash resources, and they can be extracted from the water by the simple process of evaporation and crystallisation. Incredible though it may seem, a quarter of the contents of the Dead Sea is solid matter.