The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-11-18
MOUNTAINS OF SALT.
A New Industry Which Will Help n
Part of Australia.
Philadelphia Record.

Philadelphia Record.
Immense salt gardens have recently been
long. along the bay Of Stingaree, in
Queensland, Australia. The site was. I'M
til recently, barren waste OF swamp and
samphire scrub. and thought good for
nothing whatever. The present proprietors,
however, have converted Ii into place
of interest. employing large commodity,
with the water their raw material.
The works, or salt gardens, present the
appearance of a chess board OF shallow
tanks. About 800 acres are cut up in this
way by miles of walls, the tanks, or pad
decks" condensers and crystalliZers vary
from one to fifty acres I'm size. and there
are about one hundred of them. The
whole area under use is cut off from the
sea by a large wall. containing sluice
gates To admit the sea water required.
The dividing walls keep the water uni
formly spread over the ground presenting
all the surface possible TO the cooperating
action of the sun and wind. The rainfall
is an important item; the average is the
lowest at the site chosen of any point on
the whole coast
When the water enters through the sluice
gates ii is held in the largest paddocks UNI
oil the evaporation raises its density con-
siderably. 1t Is then, by smaller sluices,
run into, or pumped up on 10 higher levels,
called condensers. Here IL remains until
the evaporation raises the density to tina,
OF brine, and by this time IL has lost many
impurities (such as iime) which. as the
water gets denser. are deposited. Then the
promoter that the brine is ready FOR the
crystallizers. and IL is pumped up into
them BY regular pumping the brine is let
into and kept in the crystalliZers, which
have already had their bottoms leveled at
a uniform depth, and as the evaporation
goes on the water becomes too dense to
hold the salt and deposits IL in beautiful
crystals on the bottom. forming a layer
several inches thick. Again using a n.y.
promoter the manager knows when the
water has lost all the salt il will give up l.
a pure state; and when this point is
reached the remaining water is drained off
This residue is called mother-liquor, and
contains magnesium. sulphates, chlorides,
potassium, etc. These impurities would be
deposited on top of the salt and make ID i'm
pure IL the mother-iquor were not drained
off at the right time Thus pure salt only
is obtained.
The salt Is then harvested by shoveiing
il up into cocks. which give the crystal
lizers the appearance OF a military camp.
When the salt has drained in the cocks il
is narrowed out into stacks of several hun
dreds of tons each. The stacks are thel
matched, TO prevent the rain from dissolv-
ing them. The company has also a refinery
at which the salt is dissolved in water and
again evaporated In iron pans by artifci:
heat. In this way a beautiful white and
superior salt is obtained. A grinder has
also been erected TO dry and crush the
crude crystals: IL is here that the fine table
salt is made.
Just as ii is, as bay salt. Ii is used largely
for packing meat for export and preserving
meat and rabbits. sheep cattle, for glazfns
bricks and pottery and other purposes