THE Ff SUING INDUSTRY. 415 



the simple one of evaporating our sea water under the 

 heat of the sun, leaving a coarse, crude salt. 



The water was pumped out of the sea by windmills * 

 carrying about twenty-six yards of canvas upon four 

 arms. The water pipes were pine logs bored through the 

 center by long four-inch augers, and these logs fitted end 

 in end along down the beach to the low-water line. Some 

 can still be seen at Sandy Cove beach weighted down by 

 stones. The pumps at the foot of the windmills sucked 

 up the salt water through the logs and emptied it into 

 level wooden vats about twenty feet wide and two or 

 three times as long, built upon the level marshes at the 

 top of the beach. 



The water, about six inches deep, remained in these 

 vats from one to six days, when it had become so much 

 evaporated as to taste quite salty. This was then allowed 

 to run out into another vat about one third as long called 

 the " weak pickle vat." 



The next vat into which the water was run was called 

 the "strong pickle vat." When the salt began to form 

 like very thin ice upon the strong pickle it was flowed off 

 into the salt vat, making about four or five inches deep of 

 the strongest possible brine. A little more evaporating 

 was necessary to precipitate a bed of salt about three 

 inches deep in the salt vat, ready for use if it had not 

 turned bitter. 



About one quarter of a pound of salt could be pro- 

 cured out of every gallon of sea water. If at any time 

 the rain threatened, there were little roofs to be slid over 

 the vats so that the brine would not be delayed too much 

 in precipitating its burden of salt. 



When the schooners came in from the fishing cruises 

 and the orders were sent for twenty hogsheads or more of 

 salt, it was shoveled out of the little salt houses and 



* Windmill Point is so nainud from one of these mills which used to stand 

 upon it. 



