180 Manufacture of Salt by Evaporation on Faggots. 
France, where he filled with distinction, during many years 
the station of Inspector General of education.—Jdem. 
Other Extracts from Foreign Journals. 
17. Manufacture of Salt by Evaporation on Faggots.*-—The 
salt works at Montiers in the Tarentaise, are perhaps the 
best conducted of any in the world. The water from which 
the salt is manufactured, is only about half the strength of 
sea water; yet by the simple and ingenious method of evap- 
orating, the works are rendered very profitable. In the first 
attempt to make salt at Montiers, in 1550, the water was 
concentrated by trickling through pyramids of rye straw, ar- 
ranged in open galleries, and afterwards evaporated in boil- 
ers by fuel. The present buildings were erected in 1739. 
There are four evaporating houses, called Maisons d’Epines, 
(literally, houses of thorns.) Nos. 1 and 2 are each 350 yards 
in length, about 25 feet in height, and seven feet wide. They 
are uncovered at top; the frame is filled with double rows of 
faggots of black thorn, placed loosely so as to admit the air, 
and supported firmly in their position by transverse pieces of 
wood. 
The water being received from the reservoir trickles 
through the faggots, and falls into troughs arranged under- 
neath; from which it is raised by pumps worked by a water- 
wheel, when it again takes the same course. This process 
is continued until the water is concentrated to about three 
degrees of strength, i. e. until half of the water is evaporated, 
(the water, as received from the springs, containing from 1.75 
to 1.83 percent. ofsaline matter.) The process is conducted 
with more nicety in Nos. 3 and 4, and these houses are cov- 
ered at the top, to protect the salt-water from the rain. No. 
3, 1s 370 yards long: in this the water is concentrated to the 
strength of 12 per cent. when it is passed along channels to 
the Maison d’Epines No. 4, a building only 70 yards in 
length: here the concentration is continued nearly to the 
point of saturation. In dry weather the concentration is 
* Analysis of a paper by R. Bakewell, Esq. iw the Lond. Philom Mag. 
and Journ. Vol. 63. 
