Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-05-05

and it evaporates the water, rs per cent. of
which must be thrown off in vapor before
crystalllzation takes place. But the reader
will understand me better if / first show
him a salt block.
The one to which / have already re-
, ferred as having capacity of 225 barrels
per day may be described as follows: The
'block" is POS feet by 90, 40 feet high
under the center, which includes the ven
tilator running the entire length of the
grainers, and Is feet high in the posts. 1t
contains two Settlers" each 140 feet long,
feet wide and feet deep. As the els
terms outside are high enough to drain
into the settlers, so the latter are high
enough to drain into the 'grainer," of
which there are four each $50 feet long,
10 feet wide and Is inches deep. Through
these also run galvanized four-inch steam
pipes. To heat settlers and grainers there
are 3,744 feet of such pipe, and other
pipes connected with the works make a
total of 5000 feet. The grainers stand
about six or eight feet from the ground,
and over their center runs platform upon
which the salt as Gifted" is left to drain
before being dumped into the
bins" of which there are about twenty
Connected with the bins are the packing
rooms" and adjoining the block is the
shed" 230xl50 feet with a capacity of
$4,000 barrels of salt
Now let us go into the block again. The
settlers are full. 1t is, say o'clock A. NJ
The block is so full of steam that you will
have to strain your vision to see the floor
on which you walk and guard against
misshaps. The grainers are nearly empty
of brine, but their bottoms are covered
with the salt that has been quietly falling
there for twenty-four hours under heat
of lS5 degrees. Along each side of a
grainer the gang Of eight men is strung
out each with his "stent." These men
are naked to the waist, over the lower
limbs are drawn old wooden drawers, red
being a fancy color, and on the feet old
shoes or boots with the legs cut away.
Each man has hoe and a shovel With
the one he pulls the salt from the center to
the side of the grainer and with the other
" lifts" it upon the aforesaid platform. On
every man perspiration stands in great
beads or trickles down his skin in tiny
streams. No need of Turkish baths for
these fellows They are as clean, solid
and hardy as well trained athletes.
Once saw one of these lifters slip and
plunge one leg into the grainer where the
water stood at 1S5 degrees. There was no
scream or oath. He was out in an instant,
but when his drawers were drawn off the
skin peeled from his leg as you've seen it
roll off new potato.
When the salt is lifted the residue of
brine is drained out, perhaps twice
week. Why? Because the bromide of
sodium q believe that's right evades cap
ture as long as possible; or perhaps the
chlorine and sodium atoms won't allow it
to come into their embrace as long as there
is water enough left for them to crowd it
beneath them, and hence it collects in the
bottom of the grainer and if the brine is
crystallized to the bottom, the bromide
must be taken in and that spoils the salt,
gives it that disagreeable bitter taste you
sometimes observe in salt or strong brine.
The salt lifted, the grainers are retilled
with brine from the settlers, its temper
ature raised to 1S5 degrees and in a short
time you will see film forming over the
surface of the saturated brine. That is
salt. Watch it a few moments and you
will see this film break to pieces and take
"header" down below. So the process
goes on for twenty-four hours when the
lifting operation is repeated, and so from
day to day through the season.
By II o'clock the men have wheeled the
salt to bins and there settles over the
granting room silence as profound as
that which must have brooded over the
abyss of nothingness ere it was said there
should be light. Yet in that silence goes
on Increasingly from hour to hour mys-
terry as wonderful, as beautiful, as divine
as is seen in the evolution or dissipation of
a world. The heat unfolds the wings, as
it were, of the molecules of water and
they rise through the air, but the sodium
is too heavy, too earthly, and cannot soar.
Having got the mitten, as it were, it turns
to the atoms of chlorine hanging round.
They embrace and materialize in tiny
crystal cubes. Undisturbed their union
would remain forever. But they are sus-
ceptible to many possible environments,
their chief enemy being moisture. II
takes but a moiety of that to tear the
union of the chlorine and sodium to
pieces, and that operation is performed by
you every time you shake your salt-cellar
over your steak.