SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR 
339 
As white sugar is purer than brown, there has grown 
up a mistaken notion, that salt is to be judged by the 
same standard, and its purity estimated by its ickiteness, 
particulary for table use. This error in the public judg- 
ment compels the producers of table salt, and sometimes 
that put up in banels, to whiten their staple by the free 
use of Z:7/ic, where nature fails to supply lime in the brine. 
"So soon as a more enlightened puolic sentiment shall de 
mand a purer article of salt for table use, and for salting 
butter and meat, manufacturers will at once meet the wants 
of the community. But so long as the latter demands a 
salt as white as recently slaked, pure lime, in place of the 
diaphanous crystals of chloride of sodium, this morbid 
taste must and will be greatifisd, no matter what damage 
accrues to consumers. Dear bought experience has 
taught many dairymen in New York, and house keepers 
everywhere, that some knowledge of common salt is very 
useful, by which to judge of its purity ; and this applies 
-as well to sea-salt evaporated by the sun, as to that boiled 
from natural brine. Lime, magnesia and sulphuric acid 
are the most common foreign elements in salt. Sulphu- 
ric acid combined with soda, forms glauber salts; with 
magnesia, it forms epsom salts; ’^oth of which part with 
their water of crystallization, and form a white dry pow- 
der. if long kept in a dry atmosphere. Salt that has any 
considerable amount of either, or that has parted W’ith 
its chlorine, fjioresces. Sulphuric acid combined with 
dime, fo' ms gypsum — a salt that abounds in the salines at 
the Onondaga Salt Works. 
When the base of lime, called calcium^ and that of 
magnesia, called mo^^nesium, combine with chlorine, 
salts are formed, which give to common salt an undue at- 
traction for water, and cause it often to deliquesce, or dis- 
solve in a humid atmosphere. By washing salt in a per- 
fectly saturated solution of the same mineral, so that it 
can dissolve no more chloride of sodium, it is easy to re- 
move all th.e naore soluble salts of lime and magnesia from 
any salt one wishes to apply to his meat, or butter. Gyp- 
sum being o.ily sparingly soluble in water, always falls as 
a preciptute in strong brine, and remains as a powder when 
the’pickle is poured oft. It is on this account that lime is 
used to separate sulphuric acid from brine in the manufac- 
ture of sciit, in some places. Copperas is sometimes 
troublesome, which is the sulphate of iron ; alum may 
-also be present, which is a sulphate of alumina and pot- 
ash. The chemistry of salt-making and that of salt in 
preserving animal substances, ought to be as familiar to 
intelligent Americans as bacon and eggs; but some how 
popular understanding is slow to appreciate the value 
of this kind of informa ion. There lies before us nearly 
one hundred analyses of different varieties of common 
^It, which, appear not to have fallen under the observation 
•f the writer in D-.Bow’s A^fter stating’correctly 
the n.'!U)ril strength of the brine at Syracuse and Salina, 
he says; I have .no means of knowing the strength of! 
the brj.ne in the Salt Basin of Kan i wha, but think it is 
generally stronger th n that of New York: — 
Tlio.mas Spencer, Esq , in a commufiication from Kana- 
wha, to tiiL Superiiiie;ide it of the New York Salt Works, 
in 1817, s lys the brine in the firmer, is on an a erage 
32 |ie c^ i;t of s ■.■-■ration; while that of the New York I 
.salines. CIS ihf' w: i'cr kn o.vs, is 73 pm cent. In 1853, j 
Piof J-;r?es Hali. St t- Geologist, vi died the va1iy of the i 
Kan^a wh-i , cii;.! g ive an inicres ing aicount of its SaltJ 
Works, 'i ‘r y '‘(./it- in- d at th.g ' .nc. f o n one and a q^i.tr- ’ 
ter, to three itod si?:!y eight per ce .' of chloride of cal d ! 
urn; w'.g hne saro .i's o tauvjd from S liviile, near; 
Abingdon, Y \ , made oy : rlifici.il heo, were fntn' on' 
an-ilysis pure.' t.i-n any uae samples of salt produced I y • 
solar evrip;'r.tt;;;n. j 
In I'new s at Ktnawh.a no ll.iie is now used lo clari ! 
ty the Oitiio; the sua annualiy produced ^nearly three; 
million bushels) gives much better satisfaction than it for- 
merly did. Mr Dennis (the writer in the Review) travels 
some distance into the past history of salt making near 
Liverpool, when he copies five pages of an elaborate phi- 
lippic writer by Dr. Mitchell, of New York, in 1803,do- 
precating the use of Liverpool salt in this country. It is 
more to the purpose when he quotes Dr. Brownrigo, of 
England, to the effect that salt is in some degree decom- 
posed at a boiling heat, its chlorine being volitilized, and 
driven off, leaving the soda to combine with carbonic acid 
in the atmosphere, if no stronger acid be present. So far 
as this result is attained in boiling, it is unquestionably in- 
jurious; but as salt seldom effloresces, or otherwise in- 
dicates an excess of soda, the evil, we apprehend, is not 
so common as the presence of lime and magnesia. Knapp 
says : “Of all these salts, chloride of magnesium is that 
which has the greatest influence on the produce, both on 
account of its deliquescence in the air, and its highly sa- 
line taste. For, whilst chloride of sodium never attracts 
moisture from the air, it is well known how rapidly or- 
dinary salt becomes wet in damp weather; this is sti^ 
more evident when the salt has to be removed to a distance 
and is proportionally more rapid when it contains a large 
quantity of the chloride of magHesium.” 
The above remarks are copied from high authority, that 
the unscientific reader may know that the more his 
salt attracts dampness the impurer it is; although a salt of 
magnesia is less injurious than one of lime in curing meat. 
If salt IS decomposed in boiling, or in the act of crystali- 
zation, as stated in DeBow’s Review, on the authority of 
Dr. Brownrigg, it is remarkable that the learned author 
of Chemical Technology should omit to mention so int- 
portant a fact, in discussing the subject. Nor do we find 
in* the standard works of Rose and Fresenios any mea- 
tion of this property in common salt. Chlorine may b« 
separated to a small degree by moderate heat ; but if e»- 
tirely expelled, nothing could be easier than to produce 
any desirable amount of pure soda by simply heating sak 
in iron pans and thus expelling the acid or chlorine with 
which it is chemically combined. Heat requires the as- 
sistance of other agencies in order to produce soda fr«» 
co.mmon salt. 
The preservation of meat, butter and other animal soh- 
stances by the use of salt, and the like phenomena witness- 
ed when salt is used to pickle beans, cucumbers aad 
other vegetables, deserve our best consideration. Whea a 
failure is made in any of these operations, the fault is 
quite as apt to lay in the ignorance or defective judgraent 
of the manipulator, as in the salt used by him. So much 
depends on the temperature of the atmosphere, and on the 
quality and condition of the article to be preserved, that 
no uniform rule can be safely laid down to guide th® 
housekeeper. He should carefully study the principle$ 
involved, and act accordingly. Over-salted beef is nearly 
worthless; w’-hile under-salted will soon become tainted 
and spoil In warm weather, cut it into slices as for steaks, 
rub over w’ithdry salt in moderate quantity, and dry as 
speedily as possible, when it is wished to preserve it for 
future consumption. Salt operates to contract all the cells 
and tubes on the surface of meat, and thus exclude fion* 
the flesh ali atmospljeric air ; i.-'-r can chemical changes 
■witi.in the meat occur as readily when the ga.ses formed 
c -nnot escape. If this insulation w’ere perfect, it would be 
pr .cticible to keep meat quite fresh exeent on its surGre. 
B. ; as it is not, drying is needed to ■.'.ri.p'ete the curing. 
•’o avoid the depredations of flies atid other insects, w® 
keep pork and beef under brm.e as much as possiale. 
This w.Y of preserving requires one to unuer&tand 
the ar: of keep' t'g brine pure and s^weet. This olqect is 
:^red!(y pronvncc' by having a deep dry well, irt our 
Sou.hci o eli.viate, or a cod cellar. 'w'hicli answx-rs every 
p rpo e ii: the Noniiern States. Btf 're a batrel of pork 
or Lcei !s fairly cuted in brine, 'he latter should either b« 
