224 Salt Springs of Moutiers. 



due-water of the first boiling, by repeatedly passing over the cords, 

 deposited all its salt in about forty-five days, and the cords were in- 

 crusted with a cylinder of pure salt, which was broken off by a par- 

 ticular instrument for the pvupose.* This process is at present 

 abandoned for crystallizing ; but the cords are still used for evapora- , 

 ting, and are found to answer better for the higher concentration of 

 the water, than the faggots. This method did not answer for the 

 first evaporation, because the water rotted the cords ; but it was dis- 

 covered that the cords were not soon injured by it, when it had ac- 

 quired five degrees of strength. The cords, we were informed, had 

 many of them remained thirty years in use, without being changed : 

 indeed, they were so thickly encased with depositions of selenite, that 

 they v/ere defended from the action of the water. This mode of 

 evaporating is found to be more expeditious than that of the faggots. 



A sketch of the evaporating house. No. 1., is annexed; No. 2. 

 is similar to it in eYQvy respect. 



In the covered house, No. 3., there are twenty-four pumps, twelve 

 on each side, to distribute the water more equally over the whole. 

 This system of pumps is worked by joined bars of wood, which 

 move backwards and forwards, and arei connected by crank wheels 

 with each piston, to raise and depress it. As I have before mention- 

 ed, they take care to evaporate on the windward side of the build- 

 ing. When I was on the top of No. 3., though the air was very 

 warm, I felt an intense degree of cold, the consequence of speedy 

 evaporation. 



In the Maison de Cordes, it is found that the evaporation goes on 

 more speedily in windy weather than in the Maisons d'Epines, as 

 might be expected from the more ready access of air to the surface 

 of the water. The cords are double, passing over horizontal rods 

 of wood at the top and the bottom, to keep thera firm in their posi- 

 tions, and at regular distances from each other. I did not seethe 

 cords without fheir envelope of selenite ; but I was informed that 

 they were not thicker than the finger. With the incrustations they 

 were become as thick as the wrist. 



Near the salt-springs there are the remains of a large reservoir, 

 into which the v^ater was formerly made to fall from a considerable 



* This process might be used for sea-waterwith particular advantage in warm cli- 

 mates, and the necessity for boiling altogether avoided. 



