SALT INDUSTRY AND RESOURCES OF THE PHILIPPINE 



ISLANDS ^ 



By Alvin J. Cox and T. Dae Juan 



{From the Laboratory of General, Inorganic, and Physical Chemistry, 

 Bureau of Science, Manila, P. I.) 



SEVENTEEN PLATES AND 5 TEXT FIGURES 



The beginning of the salt industry in the Philippines is ob- 

 scure. As long as the Islands have been inhabited it is probable 

 that every family along the sea border was its own salt maker. 

 The salt was probably largely obtained by boiling and was an 

 inferior article, as no method was adopted to separate the lime, 

 the salts of the mother liquor, and other impurities. It is im- 

 possible to determine just when the first attempt at commercial 

 salt making was made in the Archipelago. Reference is made 

 to it as an ocupation as early as 1583. 



Miguel de Loarca in that year wrote of Macagua Island as 

 follows : 



The people are poor anU wretched possessing nothing but salt and fish.^ 



Of Lutuya Islets he said, "The chief occupation in all of these 

 islets is making salt and mats," and of Similara Island and the 

 small islands toward Mindoro, "All the people of these islets 

 gather a very scanty harvest; they make salt and are traders." * 



In 1637, in connection with the commerce of the Orient, which 

 the Dutch carried on with Batan, mention is made of the profit 

 to the island from salt.^ 



In accounts of the successful attack of the Spaniards against 

 the Moro pirates and on Jolo in 1731 we read that the conquerors 

 also ravaged Talobo and Capual Islands and destroyed the salt 

 works there from which the Moros derived much wealth.^ 



In 1687, in a narrative of the Augustinians in the Philippines, 

 Diaz ® writes of the unprecedented rains which ruined the crops 

 and caused a great scarcity of provisions. He said: 



it was impossible to work the salt-beds, the price of salt rose so high 



* Received for publication February 10, 1915. 



' Blair and Robertson, The Philippine Islands. The Arthur H. Clark 

 Company, Cleveland (1903), 5, 53. 

 'Ibid. (1903), 5, 73. 

 *Ibid. (1905), 27, 93. 

 "Ibid. (1907), 46, 39. 

 •Ibid. (1906), 42, 258. 



375 



