Floating Factory

The world is short of bromine, Is this important? Yes, if photography, especially moving pictures, are important. Bromides of silver and potassium are essential to their welfare. Yes, if ethyl motor fluids are important; if certain medical sedatives are important. The world is short of bromine, and the chief sources--salt deposits in Prussian Saxony, brines in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Chile --do not bid fair to replenish the supply.

But there is bromine in seawater, about a pound of the heavy brown liquid to 1,700 gallons of ocean. Some Manhattan oil men have remembered this, have developed a new extraction process, fitted out a floating factory, the Ethyl, which sails next week from Wilmington, Del, for a long cruise and no port.

Equipped with large-capacity pumps at her waterline, the Ethyl will roam the seas, sucking up 7,000 gallons of water per minute. A recovery plant on board is expected to extract 100,000 lb. of bromine a month, the ocean waves and winds taking care of sewage and fume problems that would be troublesome on shore. If the Ethyl proves a treasure ship, a bromine fleet may soon follow her to sea. The experiment may also open a rich field in other ocean extracts--for instance, iodine.