The Portland daily press., 1894-12-15
A PINCH OF SALT.
Scraps of Information About Useful Ar
tiele.
tFrom the Detroit Free Press

tFrom the Detroit Free Press.j
People do not eat salt by the teaspoonful
as they do sugar, yet not meal is eaten
during the day that deos not have a sea
soning of salt disseminated through it and
sugar could be much easier spared from food
than the more humble saline article.
By some mysterious law of nature salt is
continually evolved from living bodies and
must as constantly be received again in
due proportion to the loss. 1t is by The law
of evaporation that we enjoy our privilege
of salt. as it is now believed that the chief
source of it is from the ocean. although
the salt of the sea is bitter and draught
of sea-water works madness in the brain OF
him who drinks 1t is estimate that individ
uals average yearly allowance of l6
pounds of salt. This does not mean salt in
the bulk, but the constituent which enters
into the system by the process of assimila
ton. Its necessity as an article OF diet Is
assured by its presence in the oorpuscles
of he blood, where mustard and pepper
are assuredly not found.
The salt mines of the world are among the
! most important schemes of commerce. and
the slightest change in the method of man
ufacture is hailed almost as triumph of
science. When England began to export a
pure white crystal salt to India, the Hin
docs would not use it; they mistrusted its
| brilliant wilderness and preferred the dark
native salt, which contraste we'll with their
white rice. Time has overcome their pre-
iudices, and they now eat freely ofthe English
| salt. while their own has undergone pu1i-
| flying process.
The salt used in England comes prime ipal-
| iy from the Cheshire mines, but the con-
| tinental salt is obtained from different
| sources. especially from the great salt dis
| tricts of Austria. which cover large area,
| nd have been for many years a source of
revenue to the leople of that locality. The
DurI en- burg mine at Hallein has been
worked steadily for 600 years, and others
| have been like patrimony. handed down
| to it's workmen. To the government the
| salt mines aIe regular profit. To go down
| into these mines in the leather garme nts
provided for visitors. TO gaze and taste, and
| wonder by the glim1ner of horn lantern,
| has been one of the privileges of the tourist
4 in Austria. The great crystal crypts are
| most attractive, and much less danger
| GUS than their prototypes. the coal mines.
| The salt wells of Syracuse are great Amer
| lean industries, which are, however, only
$50 years old, and were discovered by the
! Indians, who were the originators of the
| salt industry in this country, although they
| were afraid to drink of the water. believing
| il to have been sailed by demon, o poison
| them. Father LIE Moyne, passing that way
| in 1858, evaporated some of the water of
which they complaincd.and obtained a pure
article Of salt, which he carried to Quebec.
| Next national tree of the five nations was
| planted on the shore of the spring. and a
| treaty making council held. The Indians,
however. kept their possessions until after
| the revolutionary war. Then small COM
pany boiled the water in camp kettles on
| crotched sticks, and in ITS the state bought
| the land, STIMULATING its future use as a
salt manufacturing field. Twenty Indian
| chiefs signed the treaty. Governor Clinton.
William Floyd, Ezra l. Hommedieu. Richard
varrick. Samuel Jones. Egbert Benson and
Peter Gansevoort-all names of historic in