EXPLOITING THE DEAD SEA

Evening Star, Issue 19710, 10 November 1927, Page 5

EXPLOITING THE DEAD SEA

Few modern enterprises have had a stronger appeal to the imagination than the proposals now under review for the exploitation of the, vast chemical resources of the Dead, Sea (says the ‘Westminster Gazette’). To a. generation not much older than our own, with vagus ideas as to tbe position of tho ancient cities of the plain, tbo project would have seemed nothing less than an attempt to turn Sodom and Gomorrah to profitable account, and, peradventuro, to find an nncuveuanted use for Lot’s wRc herself Wo have learned to look for tbo sites of cities whose names have become a byword in infamy elsewhere than in tiie chasm left by some convulsionary earth movement near the close of the Eocene period, but the great lake and the regions immediately surrounding it are weird enough to make intelligible the legends of which they have long been the centre. A curse has seemed to brood over the spot from time immemorial, and not all the pleasant stories of intrepid travellers bobbing about like corks in a vain endeavor to sink themselves in tbs buoyant waters of the lake have suggested its development ns a pleasure resort. A dead sea it seemed likely lo remain to all eternity with no livelier associations than that of the proverbial fruit which exploded in a dust cloud when it was handled. To-day, in William Blake’s phrase, “ wo drive our cart and plough over the bones of the dead,” and have no qualms about tho installation of salt pans, pumps, and pumping stations on tho shores of the Dead Sea. * Have wo not already trains from Jaffa and Haifa to Jerusalem, and electric stations in process of construction upon the Jordan itself? It ’s beyond doubt that the great lake is rich in potassium chloride, magnesium bromide, sodium chloride, magnesium chloride, and calcium chloride, and if the separation of these is a practicable commercial proposition, the supply 'f potash to tho world market should he almost inexhaustible. At present Germany is the chief medium of supply, ami has virtual control of tho market. If the new project proves feasible it opens for Palestine and Transjordania a great opportunity of industrial commercial development upon lines which should materially assist tho, responsibilities of Groat Britain as the mandatory power,