54 BULLETIN OF THE NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



tents of the kettle are well stirred with the ladle and dipped 

 into the basket resting on the so-called basket sticks laid 

 across the rim of the kettle. While the process of taking 

 the salt from the kettle is going on, the workman opens the 

 faucet for a few minutes to add some fresh brine to the con- 

 centrated pickle of the kettle and washes the salt, so to 

 speak, with this mixture, thereby freeing it as much as pos- 

 sible from the adhering calcium sulphate and the calcium 

 and magnesium chlorides. The basket with its salt remains 

 usually on the kettle for drainage till the kettle has to be 

 " drawn " a second time, when the contents are dumped into 

 the salt-bins beside the walk. The advantage of this method 

 of drainage is readily understood when we bear in mind the 

 fact that the rising steam or vapor given off from the brine 

 of the refilled and boiling salt kettle below penetrates the 

 salt in the basket, condenses to water and in its descent 

 through the salt carries along some of the still adhering cal- 

 cium and magnesium chlorides. The panning process, pre- 

 viously described, though carried out in the best possible 

 manner will not completely remove from the kettle all the 

 separated calcium sulphate, but some of it together with 

 separated salt, will bake on the bottom and sides, forming 

 an incrustation* constantly increasing in thickness, though 

 at every refilling of the kettle with fresh brine, considerable 

 of this adhering salt redissolves. This incrustation increases 

 much more rapidly in the front kettles than in those nearer 

 to the chimney, since a front kettle is usually drawn every 

 4 to 5 hours while a back kettle often requires from 24 to 

 36 hours before a sufficient amount of salt has separated. 

 Moreover a front kettle holds 150 gallons of brine while 

 those nearest the chimney contain but 100 gallons. Usually 

 in 5 or 6 days the incrustation becomes so thick that it in- 

 terferes very materially with the evaporation, causing a great 



* The calcium sulphate left in the kettle after a good panning together with that 

 which separates with the salt becomes in almost all the kettles heated sufficiently high 

 to loose its water of crystallization and changes into so-called plaster of Paris, the 

 workmen call it plaster of bitterns. 



