NEW INVENTED ART OR METHOD OF MAKEING SALT, OF THE LIKE KIND AND QUALITY AND IN ALL RESPECTS EQUAL IN USE AND GOODNESS WITH THE SALT COMMONLY CALLED BAY SALT OR WHITE SALT, USUALLY IMPORTED FROM FRANCE AND SPAIN, AND WHICH IS USED IN SALTING AND CURING OF FISH AND FLESH
Year: 1764

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, 1, JOHN
BAKER, of Litten, in the County of Derby, Gentleman, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third, by His
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of Great Britain, bearing date
at Westminster, the Thirtieth day of April, in the fourth year of His reign,
did give and grant unto me, the said John Baker, His especial lycence, that
I, the said John Baker, during the term of fourteen years therein expressed,
should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend my "NEW INVENTED
ART OR METHOD OF MAKEING SALT, OF THE LIKE KIND AND QUALITY AND IN ALL
RESPECTS EQUAL IN USE AND GOODNESS WITH THE SALT COMMONLY CALLED BAY
SALT OR WHITE SALT, USUALLY IMPORTED FROM FRANCE AND SPAIN, AND WHICH IS
USED IN SALTING AND CURING OF FISH AND FLESH," within that part of His
Majesty's Kingdom of Great Britain called England, the Dominion of Wales,
and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed; in which said Letters Patent there is
contained a provisoe obliging me, the said John Baker, to cause a particular
of the nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be
performed, by writing under my hand and seal, to be inrolled in four
calendar months after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as by the
same (relation being thereunto had) may more at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in complyance with the said provisoe, I, the said
John Baker, do hereby particularly describe the nature of my said Inven-
tion, and how the same is to be performed, in manner following (that is to
say):-
I take brine fully saturated with salt, either by boyling in common salt
pans, or exposing sea water to the sun's beams, and put the same in a pan

page_text: placed over furnaces, as represented in the plan hereunder made and deline-
ated, wherein it is christallized by giving a heat to the surface of the brine in
the pan equal to or rather more than what is given to the bottom of the
brine, which is effected by drawing the heat over the pan which hath already
passed under the pan, which drawing of the heat over is effected by means
of an arch formed over the whole length of the pan and of the space at the
end of it. And the salt made by this process is esteemed equal if not superior
in goodness with the common bay salt. The inside of the building where the
process is performed is represented by the first section in the Plan, in which
building are six small fireplaces as in Sections 3 & 2, fourteen inches square, with
a small aperture to each of six inches square, as in Sect. 2, to put the fewel thro',
and which must have iron doors closely fitted to keep the air from rushing in.
The fewel must be such as affoards no smoke or soot, as cinders, cokes, or char-
coal from wood. Over or at the back of these fireplaces are flews or funnels
two feet high, besides their arch, and three feet wide, with brickwork a foot
thick between each funnell. These flews run in an horizontal parallel manner
twelve yards and an half in length, and all the heat from them comes thro' a
room three yards long and eight yards wide, into which is an iron door for the
workmen to pass through to take the salt out of the pan. The flews with their
interstices are covered with a bed of sand ten inches thick above the crown
of the flews, upon which bed of sand is placed the pan, either lead, iron, or
copper, twelve yards long, eight yards wide, and eighteen inches deep, which
pan containeth the brine. Over the pan is an arch, as in Section 3, to spring
at the top eight yards wide, and four foot high at the center, and to extend
the whole length of the pan, and of the room, for the flews to discharge their
heat into, and under which arch the said heat returns and passeth over, and
reverberates upon the brine in the pan, until it cometh to the chimney in
Section 1, which is over the fireplaces, and whereat the heat and steam are
discharged. In the front gable end, above the pan and under the chimney, is
a door made very close, thro' which is a pipe laid to convey the brine into
the pan, and which door is to be frequently open'd for the purpose of trying
with a thermometer (Fahrinheit's) the heat of the brine (which is never to
exceed two hundred degrees, if then abated, by stoping close up one of the
ashholes or more of them, and by means of such door to try when the salt is
fit to draw, at which times the fires must be stop'd till cool enough for a man
to take out the salt. The brine in the pan must be kept to a moderate heat
under that of boyling water till the salt be grained, but the operation is not
to be too long continued, for fear of hardning the bittern, which would injure
the salt. When the salt is taken out of the pan it is put into large wooden

page_text: troughs with holes in the bottom for the bittern to drain thro', then it is fit for
In places where it is allowed to use rock salt, sea water may be effec-
tually saturated therewith, and then it will need no other preparation before it
goes into the pan for christallization, and brine from salt springs may be used
as above mentioned for sea water; all which, together with the plan of
sections and table of refferences hereunder sett, is a full and true description
of my said Invention.
In witness whereof, I, the said John Baker, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Seventeenth day of August, in the fourth year of the
reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Third, by the grace of God,
of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender of the Faith,
and in the year of our Lord 1764.
Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification, and all
and every thing therein contained and specified, in form above written. And
also the Specification was stampt according to the tenor of the Statute made
in the sixth year of the reign of the late King and Queen William and Mary
of England and so forth
Inrolled the Twenty-fifth day of August, in the year aforesaid.