ON THE PRICE OF MATERIALS 



that the brine springs of these two counties were not rendered 

 available for supply. In all likelihood the supply was all but 

 universally, if not wholly, procured from the evaporation of 

 sea-water, in shallow pans or frames, laid on the coast and 

 exposed to the summer sun. 



The most powerful cause, therefore, for the rise and fall in 

 the price of salt was the greatness or smallness of the total 

 amount of direct solar heat in any given year, and the rate of 

 the autumn purchases must have been absolutely, in the earlier 

 period at least, affected by this cause. The operation required, 

 no doubt, little labour beyond that of constructing the salterns, 

 watching the process, covering the pans in all probability 

 during casual showers, and collecting the crystals as the water 

 evaporated. 



So great an influence was exercised, I am persuaded, by the 

 amount of natural heat available for the evaporation of brine, 

 that among other facts I should be disposed to take the rise and 

 fall in the price of salt as being more significant of what was 

 the general character of the year, and of the dryness or wet 

 of the summer months, than any other contributory to the 

 elements of such an enquiry. Thus, passing down the general 

 averages, I should conclude that the summer of the years 

 1394, 1395, 1396 was ? on the whole, cloudy and wet. 



Nor is this a mere surmise or a vague induction. The years 

 I 3 T 5? I 3 1 ^ are characterised by a prodigious exaltation in the 

 price of salt, and these were, as the reader may remember, the 

 years of the Great Famine. Now we are expressly informed 

 that the proximate cause of the dearth was the incessant 

 rain which prevailed throughout the whole of two summers 

 successively. 



No excise was levied on salt. The price of the article was 

 not enhanced in England by the pressure of taxation. The 

 inference therefore, whatever may be its value, is not dis- 

 turbed by any exceptional or external element. This com- 

 modity was one produced at nearly equal cost, and was in 

 nearly equal demand, being at once an article of prime 



