"America's Gibraltar Muscle Shoals - A Brief for the establishment of our National Nitrate Plant…",

This booklet and maps describe plans for the Muscle Shoals development on the Tennessee River to mine nitric acid, an important ingredient in all explosives, considered important in America's "Military Preparedness." The first page of the book is an abstract of Senate Document No. 442 (64th Congress, 1st Session) which appropriated $20,000,000 to build a facility to create nitric acid including large hydroelectric plants to power the apparatus. The law specifically stated the plant must be constructed and operated solely by the Government and not in conjunction with any other industry or enterprise carried on by private capital. A sepia toned photo gravure of President Wilson is tipped in as the frontis. This congress was in session from March, 1915 to September, 1916, during Woodrow Wilson's presidency and the first part of WWI, or the Great War. The book was "Presented to the Members of the American Electrochemical Society as a Souvenir of their Tour of the South - 1918." The Muscle Shores project was a forerunner to the much larger Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The book is filled with illustrations, many in color, charts, town plans and two very large maps as follows.

The first is a Panorama of Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, (32.5 x 10"). This stunning fine bird's-eve view shows the river and planned hydro-electric plants.

And the second large folding map is the Resource Map of the United States, by The Muscle Shoals Association, 1917, ( 39.3 x 25.8"). This map shows the locations of minerals of military importance and a red overprinted line is the "Safety Line for Military Plants as fixed by the War College." Filled with strategic information including roads, railroads, military arsenals and munitions plants, and the location of mining centers. Across the bottom the legend uses color to locate nine minerals with a long explanation below each symbol.

References:

Condition: A

Contents fine, but covers have some shelf wear especially at corners.