Barbara Graham, age 14, of Burrard Inlet, D.C., for her questions

Does the Dead Sea have more chemicals than ocean water?

 The waters of the Dead Sea contain about five tines more dissolved chemicals thin does ocean water. In  a cubic mile of ordinary sea water there are about 166 million tons of dissolved chemicals; in the Dead Sea waters about 830 million tons per cubic mile ton of this Dead. Sea water contains about 500 pounds of dissolved solidsa bout 50 of the 90 elements found in nature have been discovered in sea water, apart from salts, them are quantities of gold and silver.

All these chemicals are also present in the waters of the Dead Sea. one chemical is especially abundant in the waters of the salty little lake.  It is bromine, a bad smelling, highly corrosive chemical used in the dye industry and as a disinfectant, The concentration of bromine in the Dead Son is 100 times greater then in ordinary son water. It is estimated that the little Dead Son contains altogcther about 840 million tons of this useful chemical.