n the early days of New England, not very many years after the arrival of the Pilgrim fathers, a man named John Sears invented a method for getting the salt out of the sea-water. The colonists did not have many facilities for furnishing themselves with even the necessaries of life, and much of their daily work was given to inventing ways and means for providing themselves with food, clothing, and houses. One would think, however, that they must have such a common necessity as salt sent to them from the mother-country, but the distance was a long one then by the only means of transportation, which were the small ships in Great Britain, and the arrivals of these boats were few and far between.
It became a necessity, therefore, for the colonists to provide themselves with salt, as with other things; and John Sears, who lived in the town of Dennis, on Cape Cod, hit upon the plan of abstracting the salt from salt water, refining it, and putting it on the market. The plan is a simple one, and not many years ago these queer-looking salt-works anywhere on the coast of Massachusetts were common sights to the residents there. They are now fast disappearing, and but few of them remain, as cheaper processes have made this method too expensive to keep up. It has therefore died a natural death.
The plan was to put certain amounts of ordinary sea-water into large flat wooden basins in such small quantities that there was a depth of only about two or three inches. Each one of these basins had a cover, which could be rolled aside on wheels and runners, and which looked much like the roof of a small square house. In the daytime, when the sun was shining, the cover was rolled back and the sun allowed to dry up the water. During rainy weather, and even sometimes at night, the covers were rolled over the basins, thus preventing the rain itself or the heavy dews from getting into the salt water and delaying the action of the aim in drying it up. As the water was evaporated by the sun the hard salt was left on the bottom of the basin, and this could be used.
Of course salt thus made was very coarse and full of impurities, but after a time the process was refined more and more, so that instead of using one basin for stated quantities of water, a series of three or four—one a little lower than another—were used. It was found that after a certain amount of evaporation had gone on, some of the substances had settled in the bottom or attached themselves to the sides of the basin. The remainder of the liquid could then be drawn off into the next basin and evaporated there, thus allowing the evaporation process to go on. This was again stopped after a time, and the liquid drawn off into the third basin. Each time certain sediments from the salt water were left in the basin, and thus, instead of having salt with all its impurities, after the drawing process was over certain impurities were extracted from the pure salt, and in the end the salt itself was of a far more refined character than before.
SALT-WORKS.
These salt-works became so profitable that large marshes along Cape Cod up towards Boston and in other parts of the northeast Atlantic coast were given up to this process. Acres were often covered with these low foreign-looking huts, which consisted mostly of roofs. They were built in long rows, and often required the care of several men, whose homes were close to the works, and who might be seen going about pushing the roofs or covers over or back from the basins, as the weather demanded. Salt was sent from Cape Cod not only through Massachusetts, but through other colonies, and afterwards States in the Union, and it was not until, as has been said, the making of salt by chemical processes, or the using of rock-salt itself, became so cheap, that this primitive method was abandoned.
THE WINDMILLS FOR CAPE COD SALT-WORKS.