Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1901-01-04
MOUNTAINS OF SALT.
A New Industry Which VIII Help a Part of
Australia.

immense salt gardens have recently
been established in the neighborhood
of Geelcrg ,alCng the bay of Stlngaree.
! ir Coer Stand, Australia. The site was.
urtil re. emily, barren waste of swamp
ard gGmpnire scrub, and thought good
for nothing whatever The present
pyoprietors, however, have converted it
into -,ace OF interest. employing a
large number of men, and turning out
a valuable commodity, with the sea
water as their raw material.
The works. or salt gardens, present
the appearance of chess board of
shallow tanks. About three hundred
acres are cut uD in this way by miles
of walls, the tanks, of 'tpaddocks," con-
densers and crystallizers vary from
one to so acres IN SIZE and there are
abou5 100 cf them. The who'll area
under use 81 cut off from the sea by a
large wall containing sluice gates to
admit the sea water uaiform'- spread
over the ground, presenting all the
surface possible to the evauorating ac-
tion of the sun and wind The rainfall
is an important item. The average is
The lcwest at the site chosen of any
point on the whole coast.
When the water enters through the
sluice rates it is held in the largest
paGdoChs until the evaporation raises
its density considerably 1t is then by
smaller sluices run into or pumped up
on to high levels, called cordensers.
Here it remains until the evaporation
raises the density to that of brine, and
by this time it has lost many impuri-
ties (such as lime) which, as, the wat
er gets dense, are deposited. Then
the manager knows by testing with
hydrometer that the brine is ready for
the crystallizers, and it is pumped up
into them. BY regular pumping the
brine lis let into and kept in the crys-
tallizers, which have already had their
bottoms levelled at uniform depth.
and as the evaporation goes on the
salt and deposits it in beautiful crys-
tails on the bottom, forming a layer
several inches thick Again using the
hydrometer the manager knows when
the water has lost all the salt it will
give up in a pure state, and when this
point is reacher the remaining water Is
drained off. This residue is called
mother-liqucr, and contains magne-
sium, sulphates, chlorides. potassium,
etc. These impurities would be de-
posted on top of the salt and make
it impure if the mother-liquor were
not drained at the right time Thus
pure salt only is obtained.
The salt is then harvested by shovel
ling it up into cocks, which give the
crystallizers the appearance of a mill
tary camp. When the salt has drained
in the cocks it is narrowed out into
stacks of several hundred tons each.
The stacks are then thatched. to pre-
vent the rain from dlssolving them
The company has also refinery, at
which the self is dissolved in water,
and again evaDorated in iron pans by
artificial heat. In this way a beautiful
white and superior salt is obtained. A
grindery has also been erected to dry
and crush the rcude salt; it is here
that the fine table salt is made.
Just as it is. as bay salt. it is used
largely for packing meat for export and
preserving meat and rabbits. sheep
cattle; for glazing bricks and pottery,
and other purposes.