On Wed, 18 Mar 2020 10:43:08 -0400, Bob Engelhardt
wrote:

On 3/18/2020 8:07 AM, Pete Keillor wrote:
Reminds me of the old mag cells. A building was a row of pots up one
side and down the other ...

What's a mag cell/building?

Electolytic production of magnesium metal from magnesium chloride,
which was extracted from seawater. There were about 30 pots in one
building. Each pot was a heavy steel pot, refractory lined, with
about 10 10" diameter graphite anodes descending through the insulated
lid into the bath within an inch or so of conical steel cathodes.
Voltage drop was a couple volts, liquid magnesium metal and chlorine
gas were produced.

It took a special breed to work in the cell buildings, but they did
get a lot of breaks to avoid heat exhaustion. My cousins that grew up
like I did in the rice fields worked there during a strike, said it
wasn't much hotter than shoveling levees in a rice field, and a lot
easier.

Pete Keillor