The Argosy — page 246: what you’re looking at

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

Salt Working and Salt Superstitions. 224 ducing the finest table salt, which, as we have seen, cannot be obtained in open pans. Within this range of temperature all the different forms of salt-crystals are deposited. The workers have heavy, heating labour and long hours—and many must perform night-work, as the furnaces must be kept up, and the pans never allowed to become exhausted. Most of the workers at the pans are Poles or Germans. | Each evaporating pan in some of the works at Droitwich 1s, or was recently, attended by four women, two on each side, who lifted the salt from the boiling brine, as it crystallised, and placed it in moulds. When the moisture was sufficiently drained away through the perforations in the moulds at the smaller end, they were removed, and carried into the drying stores, which were always kept at a tempera- ture of from 120 to 160 degrees. The work of the women began at six in the morning. At that operation each woman was expected to fill seventy moulds, which are formed of stout boards, and to carry the solidified crystal blocks into the drying-store. At one o’clock they had to fill and remove sixty, and at half-past four an additional thirty. As these moulds with their contents weigh from forty to sixty pounds, and sometimes even more, the reader will understand something of the weights these poor women had to carry, and will join with us in the hope that more and more this kind of female labour will give place to lighter and more suitable. That salt in its pure state does not melt under any circumstances of exposure to air, is proved by many facts. Salt in its rock form is one of the hardest minerals. It can be cut and carved into the most beautiful shapes. Indeed, in some parts of India there is a considerable industry in making ornamental articles from it—Jjars, platters, cups and even knives have been made of it. In Poland it is carved into crucifixes, beads, inkstands, and many other articles, even billiard balls. In the mines of Vieliczska —which, as we have seen, are very extensive and very celebrated— there is a statue of King John Sigismund in salt. For a consider- able period this statue was at Warsaw, and showed no injury from the changes of climate. We read that in 8698 a chapel to St. Anthony was excavated in the mines, and all the furniture—the pulpit, the pews, the altars, doors, statues and ornamental work—was formed of the beautiful crystal rock salt. The mangers, troughs and stalls for the horses which work in the mines were also formed of it, so that in this case the animals could not possibly suffer from a neglect from which other domestic animals often suffer elsewhere. Very often people make a great mistake when they use salt to melt snow at their doorways, and fail to remove the liquid mixture, increas- ing thus the cold temperature of their houses in winter. When salt is mixed with snow, the heat of the crystals becomes latent in passing from the solid to the melted state. The mixture is thus much colder ECORnNICOOOKS EO