160 COGGIN BROWN : MINES & MINERAL RESOURCES OF YUNNAN. 



bearing strata. At the bottom for a few feet it is carried along 

 straight, and then terminates in a well with a diameter of five or 

 six, and a depth of sixty or eighty feet. 



The salt is dissolved out by the water in the rocks, and then, 

 percolating into the well, is raised in a carrier made of untanned 

 buffalo skin by means of a buffalo-hide rope, working on a primitive 

 windlass manipulated by four men. The windlass is a very 

 crude arrangement, consisting simply of a round wooden axle, 

 with two long pieces of wood dovetailed into each end at right 

 angles to one another, to form the handles. The axle is supported 

 on a pair of cross-stays, one on each side of the well. As there 

 is no safety clutch and the carrier full of brine is very heavy, there 

 is little protection for the workmen in case of accident. 



On reaching the top of the well, the brine is emptied into a 

 small auxiliary tank of no great depth, excavated out of the rock. 

 From here it is pumped to the surface as occasion requires. The 

 pumps are made of hollow bamboos, from four to six inches in 

 diameter, and from eight to ten feet long, fitted with a piston made 

 from a stick with a T-piece handle, to the other end of which a 

 loosely fitting plunger of skin packed with straw, is attached. 

 This is inserted inside the bamboo, which is open at both ends, 

 and has one end dipping into the second brine-well. A man, sitting 

 astride, fills the bamboo with brine by means of a hand baler and 

 then quickly works the handle up and down ; the brine is sucked 

 up and flows out at the upper open end into a small pool built on 

 the side of the incline. From this pool another pump of the 

 same kind lifts the salt solution a little higher, and the operation 

 is repeated until the surface is reached. The brine is now allowed 

 to flow by gravitation in open wooden boxes, made by hollowing 

 out tree; trunks, to large wooden storage tanks generally sunk 

 in the ground, and situated near the evaporating sheds. It is 

 ladled from the tanks when wanted and carried in wooden pails 

 constructed to fit on the necks of coolies by means of a shoulder- 

 piece. The evaporating-sheds usually contain four furnaces, each 

 of which is fitted with twenty to thirty hemispherical iron pans 

 which vary from two to four feet in diameter. The pans are 

 made of cast iron and are supported on iron bars covered with 

 brickwork. The entire top of the furnace is filled in with clay 

 and brickwork up to the level of the tops of the pans. The crude 

 brine is systematically treated : going first into a large central pan, 



