306 



SALT AND ITS MANUFACTURE. Chap. XIV. 



pouring water over it. The water takes the salt 

 out of tlie mud and carries it down through the 

 filter into a hole below. Sometimes the mud is 

 stamped upon by the feet of the workmen in order 

 to remove the whole of the saline particles with 

 which it is mixed. 



When the salt has been removed in this way 

 from the mud, the latter is thrown out of the filter 

 and dried, in order to act in the same way again. 

 The brine when it has passed through the filter 

 into the well below is perfectly clear, and of course 

 highly saline. In this state it is taken out of the 

 well and conveyed in bullock-carts to the place 

 where it is to be boiled. Here it is poured into 

 large square boilers with bamboo frames covering 

 the surface of the liquid. On these frames the salt 

 adheres as it crystallizes. 



Large quantities are also made without the aid 

 of fire or the boiling-house. The saline mixture 

 described above is poured thinly into shallow 

 wooden trays, and in this state exposed to the sun. 

 If the day is hot the water soon evaporates and 

 leaves the salt with which it was mixed at the 

 bottom of the trays. The salt made by boiling or 

 by evaporation in the sun does not seem to undergo 

 any mode of purifying as with us, but in this 

 rough state is put into baskets and carried to the 

 market. 



Salt is a government monopoly in China. All 

 the land here, with the salt-mounds, boiling-houses, 

 &c., belongs to the government. Everywhere, 



