194 



Lymington 

 salt from sea- 



Bittern. 



Salt cats* 



Preparation 

 sulphate of 



Bfcagueoia. 



ANALYSIS OF BRITISH AND FOREIGN SALT. 



me his assistance with great zeal and alacrity) for an oppor- 

 tunity of examining upwards of twenty specimens of Scotch 

 salt, prepared by different manufacturers. Thut dis- 

 tinguished chemist, it appears from a letter which he ad- 

 dressed to me on the subject, was some time ago engaged in 

 experiments on Cheshire salt. The particulars he has lost; 

 and he retains only a general recollection of the facts, which 

 confirms, i am happy to state, the accuracy of the results 

 obtained by my own experiments. 



At Lymington, in Hampshire, advantage is taken of the 

 greater heat of the climate, to concentrate the seawater by 

 spontaneous evaporation to about one sixth its bulk, before 

 admitting it into the boilers. One kind of salt is chiefly 

 prepared there, which most nearly resembles in grain the 

 stoved salt of Cheshire. The process varies a little in some 

 respects, from that which has been already described. The 

 salt is not fished (as it is termed) out of the boiler, and 

 drained in baskets; but the water is entirely evaporated, 

 and the whole mass of salt taken out at once, every eight 

 hours, and removed into troughs with holes in the bottom. 

 Through these it drains into pits made under ground, 

 which receive the liquor called bittern or bitter liquor. 

 Under the troughs, and in a line with the holes, are fixed 

 upright stakes, on which a portion of salt, that would 

 otherwise have escaped, crystallizes and forms, in the cour.e 

 of ten or twelve days, on each stake, a mass of sixty or 

 eighty pounds. These lumps are called salt cats. They 

 bear the proportion to the common salt, made from the 

 same brine, of 1 tun to 100. 

 f From the mother brine, or bitter liquor, which lias 

 drained into the pits, the sulphate of magnesia is made 

 during the winter season, when the manufacture of salt is 

 suspended, in consequence of the -want of the temperature, 

 required for the spontaneous evaporation of the sea-water. 

 The process is a very simple one*. The bitter liquor from 



the 



• I am indebted for an account of this process, as well as of the me- 

 thod of making common salt at Lymington, to the liberal communica- 

 tion uf Charles St. Barbe, Esq., of that place. Though not strictly 



conuectei 



