COST OF SALT 149 



In 1783, as Lord Dundonald pointed out, 

 sea water in the Firth of Forth yielded 2| per 

 cent, of its weight in salt and cost 1^. Sd. to 

 Is. Sd. per bushel, whereas at Liverpool rock 

 salt saturated with sea water yielded 23 per 

 cent, of its weight in salt, and cost 6d. or 8d. 

 per bushel. Salt produced from rock salt was, 

 he explains, produced as profitably to the 

 maker as salt made from sea water which cost 

 double the price, eight times the fuel, and 

 eight times the labour. Spanish, Portugal or 

 Sardinian salt is described as much better 

 than French salt or Bay salt, but the finest 

 possible salt might be made in England and 

 delivered to Copenhagen at Is. as against 

 Spanish salt at 1^. 4d. per bushel. One result 

 of the then existing conditions was an immense 

 contraband trade in salt carried on in France, 

 where 1,700 or 1,800 persons were annually 

 imprisoned and 300 condemned to the galleys 

 for smuggling salt and tobacco into France. 



Lord Dundonald also tells us that there had 

 once been 200 salt pans in North and South 

 Shields alone, though in 1784 the number was 

 reduced to twenty. This decrease in the salt 

 manufacture on the East Coast was due to the 

 special advantages offered by the greater power 

 of the sun on the South Coast and to the increas- 

 ing use of rock salt made on the West Coast, 

 " Limmington," and Liverpool. At Limming- 

 ton, we are told, sea water was evaporated 

 from shallow ponds and afterwards boiled 



