MANUFACTURES, ETC. 205 



a liquid form, and runs out into pine boxes, two feet long, and 

 a foot square. It is as pure as the Sicilian brimstone, but the 

 latter comes in sticks, which are more convenient for handling, 

 when small pieces are wanted. 



The lump sulphur is used chiefly for making powder, and 

 sulphuric acid, which last is employed in making blue-stone, 

 giant powder, nitric acid, and muriatic acid, and in refining 

 gold and silver. The consumption of sulphuric, nitric, and 

 muriatic acid on the Coast, amounts to 2,000,000 fos, and the 

 entire demand is supplied by home manufacture. The produc- 

 tion of flowers of sulphur has been commenced at Clear Lake. 

 The fumes passing off from the retort, instead of being carried 

 into a small hot receiver as for brimstone, are led into a large, 

 cool chamber, in which they condense into a flaky, snowlike 

 form. A large supply of the flowers of sulphur has been re- 

 quired in this State by the vineyardists, who use them to pre- 

 vent or cure the oidium, or vine mildew. 



East of Kern Lake there is a flat, with an area of twelve 

 square miles, where brine stronger than that of most saline 

 springs can be obtained at a depth of ten feet, and it yields a 

 salt of excellent quality for table purposes. This brine rises 

 to the surface in various places, and in dry weather dries and 

 crystallizes, so that considerable quantities can be shoveled 

 up in an impure condition. Persons at various times have 

 pumped up the water and boiled it down, but nothing is being 

 done now in that way. The natural brine is strong enough 

 without concentration to pickle meat. 



Along the coast, salt is made from the ocean at various 

 points where the water can be admitted at pleasure, or is 

 blown by storms into shallow ponds. The most extensive salt 

 ponds of the State are in Alameda County, where several 

 thousand acres in a district extending from near San Leandro 

 to the Mission of San Jose, are used in summer for the pur- 

 poses of evaporation ; and hundreds of tons of salt are pro- 

 duced there annually, most of it of a very low grade. At 



