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Saltpeter Mine Ruins in Mammoth Cave. The process involved burial of excrements (human or animal) in the fields prepared for that purpose beside the nitraries, watering them and waiting until the leaching process did its job; after a certain time, operators gathered the saltpeter that "came out" to the ground surface by efflorescence.
The structural similarity makes nitratine a very useful mineral for laboratory experiments concerning pressure dissolution and other experiments such as serving as a proxy for the deformation and formation of calcite. [6] The Saltpeter War (1480–1510) [7] and the War of the Pacific (1879–1884) [8] were fought over the control of saltpeter ...
This alkali metal nitrate salt is also known as Chile saltpeter (large deposits of which were historically mined in Chile) [4] [5] to distinguish it from ordinary saltpeter, potassium nitrate. The mineral form is also known as nitratine, nitratite or soda niter. Sodium nitrate is a white deliquescent solid very soluble in water.
New technological advances in the mid-1800s transformed the saltpeter process. Tanks that were used as part of the saltpeter production process. Michael Runkel/robertharding/Getty Images.
In 1913 Santa Laura halted its production until the Shanks extraction process was introduced, which enhanced productivity. However the economic model collapsed during the Great Depression of 1929 because of the development of the synthesis of ammonia by the Germans Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch , which led to the industrial production of fertilizers.
The Act establishing the Nitre and Mining Bureau by the Confederate Congress stated: "That said bureau shall consist of one lieutenant colonel as superintendent, three majors as assistant superintendents, six captains and ten lieutenants, in which shall be included the officers of the present nitre corps, who shall have the same pay and allowances prescribed for officers of cavalry of the same ...
Congreve oversaw the establishment of two new facilities at Portsmouth and Plymouth which were dedicated to revitalizing damp or lumpy powder, as the procedure for fixing such issues was quicker than the process for making new powder. This resulted in an improved method of extracting saltpetre and consequently higher quality gunpowder. [9]
The process was designed to yield saltpeter, an ingredient of gunpowder, which the Confederate army needed during the Civil War. The South was so desperate for saltpeter for gunpowder that one Alabama official reportedly placed a newspaper ad asking that the contents of chamber pots be saved for collection.