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BOOK XII. 



always provides a new and copious supply, always boiling hot, it condenses 

 the thickened water poured into the pans into salt ; this is at once taken 

 out with shovels, and then the work begins all over again. If the salty water 

 contains other juices, as is usually the case with hot springs, no salt should 

 be made from them. 



Others boil salt water, and especially sea-water, in large iron pots ; 

 this salt is blackish, for in most cases they burn straw under them. Some 

 people boil in these pots the brine in which fish is pickled. The salt which 

 they make tastes and smells of fish. 



A TRENCH. B VAT INTO WHICH THE SALT WATER FLOWS. C LADLE. D SMALL 



BUCKET WITH POLE FASTENED INTO IT. 



Those who make salt by pouring brine over firewood, lay the wood in 

 trenches which are twelve feet long, seven feet wide, and two and one half 

 feet deep, so that the water poured in should not flow out. These trenches 

 are constructed of rock-salt wherever it is to be had, in order that they should 

 not soak up the water, and so that the earth should not fall in on the front, 

 back and sides. As the charcoal is turned into salt at the same time as the 



