120. Present improvements in Salt maMng. 



began to use the stone coal furnaces was from two hundred and fifty 

 to three hundred bushels per week. As the furnaces were enlarged, 

 and improved in their structure and management, the quantity in- 

 creased, until, at the present time, they make in some instances, 

 nine hundred or a thousand bushels per week. The salt water, as 

 it comes from the wells, is very clear, and of the temperature of the 

 coldest spring water. When it becomes even moderately warm, it 

 begins to turn red, and when saturated by boiling, it is nearly of the 

 color of blood. In this state, it is drawn off into a large trough, 

 called " the brine trough," placed near the furnace, for the purpose 

 of settling or clarifying. When cool, it becomes perfectly clear and 

 is then returned into the grainers, where it is boiled down into salt, 

 and lifted out upon a platform, for the purpose of draining off the 

 " bitter water," or muriate of lime, a very abundant and trouble- 

 some component in all the western salines. In the course of eight 

 or ten days, a red sediment, two or three inches in thickness, re- 

 sembling red paint, forms in the bottom of the "brine trough." It 

 is composed principally of a carbonate of iron, held in solution by 

 the carbonic acid gas of the water, and set free on the application 

 of heat. At this period, ^ large portion of the furnaces have a small 

 steam engine attached for the purpose of raising the water, which 

 contains more salt the nearer they approach to the bottoms of the 

 wells. The average quantity required to make a bushel of salt, is 

 about seventy gallons. The total amount made in the year 1834, 

 is estimated by the inspector at one million and a half of bushels — 

 a very great advance from the year 1807. 



Within a few years, the manufacture of coarse salt* has been com- 

 menced, and large quantities are produced, equal in quality to the 

 best Turks Island salt. After the water is evaporated to the state 

 of strong brine and purified, it is drawn off into a long shallow vat, 

 or cistern, and kept at a moderate temperature by the aid of steam, 

 furnished by the boilers, and conducted the whole length of the 

 cistern in a metallic or a wooden pipe. The salt is deposited slowly 

 on the bottom of the vat, in beautiful, four sided, pyramidal crystals, 

 of great purity. It is removed once in eight days, and is then usu- 

 ally about a foot deep, all over the floor of the vat; some vats are 

 several hundred feet in length, and ten or twelve feet in width. 



* Strangely called alum salt. 



