The Argosy — page 245: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

220 Salt Working and Salt Superstitions. while others are considerably larger even than that. Over furnace and pan is a wooden shed, to keep out all cold air. The pans being filled with brine, the fires are lighted, and the work of evaporation begins. After a short lapse of time, a man takes his place on a platform at the edge of the pan. His business is that of “raking.” He throws out constantly into the midst of the boiling fluid a long iron rake, with which he draws to the surface of the fluid masses a fine white substance, which had settled at the bottom. As soon as the brine begins to boil, the salt rises to the surface in a kind of scum, and then, after a short time, it sinks slowly to the bottom, when it is drawn together and lifted out with a large per- forated ‘‘ skimmer,” all the brine escaping through the holes as it is being lifted. The salt is then placed in little wooden tubs, also bored with holes, set round in spaces by the side of the pan. Having filled a certain number of these tubs, the man /afs, or smooths, the salt carefully over, and sets the batch on a kind of hurdle, to be conveyed to the drying-room—a long, low chamber, highly heated by flues extending from the furnace. The spaces between the flues are called ‘‘ ditches,” really drains to carry off the water from the tubs. After a certain exposure here the salt becomes thoroughly solid; then it is removed in the oblong blocks in which it is sold. The production of the different kinds of salt is determined by the degree of heat to which the brine is exposed, and the time thus allowed for the process of detachment from other salts and for crystalisation. The process we have more particularly described above is that of “lump salt.” What is called ‘‘ Patent Butter Salt ”—the finest of all—is made in circular pans, completely covered over; the salt, as it settles at the bottom, being ‘‘raked” by a mechanical process of leverage into what is called a “hopper,” a kind of square tub, placed at the side of the pan. ‘Common salt” is made in pans, which are never heated to the boiling point. ‘Rough salt” is made from brine just warmed through, and no more. The pans in this case are only cleared about Once a week; and the salt, being very coarse in the grain, is much in demand for salting herrings and such things. ‘“ Fishery salt” is coarser still: it is only drawn once a fortnight or so, with grains sometimes as much as half-an-inch long, ‘This is entirely used for salting fish. ‘To aid in purifying the salt, a pinch of soft soap or glue s generally thrown into the brine, and the pans are kept always full. Thus the description of crystals of the salt obtained from the brine varies precisely according to the degree of heat used in the evaporating process. A temperature of 120 degrees will produce bay salt, whereas a temperature of 225 degrees is necessary for pro- CORNIELIOOLKKS (©) m