552

BOOK XII.

that the water should be made more salty, and it is then run off through alaunder which leads into the caldron. From thirty-seven dippersful of brinethe master or his deputy, at Halle in Saxony , 4 makes two cone-shaped piecesof salt. Each master has a helper, or in the place of a helper his wife assistshim in his work, and, in addition, a youth who throws wood or straw underthe caldron. He, on account of the great heat of the workshop, wearsa straw cap on his head and a breech cloth, being otherwise quite naked.As soon as the master has poured the first dipperful of brine into the caldronthe youth sets fire to the wood and straw laid under it. If the firewood isbundles of faggots or brushwood, the salt will be white, but if straw is burned,then it is not infrequently blackish, for the sparks, which are drawn up withthe smoke into the hood, fall down again into the water and colour it black.

In order to accelerate the condensation of the brine, when the masterhas poured in two casks and as many dippersful of brine, he adds about aRoman cyathus and a half of bullock’s blood, or of calf’s blood, or buck’sblood, or else he mixes it into the nineteenth dipperful of brine, in order thatit may be dissolved and distributed into all the corners of the caldron ; in otherplaces the blood is dissolved in beer. When the boiling water seems to bemixed with scum, he skims it with a ladle ; this scum, if he be working withrock-salt, he throws into the opening in the furnace through which the smokeescapes, and it is dried into rock-salt; if it be not from rock-salt, he poursit on to the floor of the workshop. From the beginning to the boiling andskimming is the work of half-an-hour ; after this it boils down for anotherquarter-of-an-hour, after which time it begins to condense into salt. Whenit begins to thicken with the heat, he and his helper stir it assiduously with awooden spatula, and then he allows it to boil for an hour. After this he poursin a cyathus and a half of beer. In order that the wind should not blowinto the caldron, the helper covers the front with a board seven and a halffeet long and one foot high, and covers each of the sides with boards three andthree quarters feet long. In order that the front board may hold morefirmly, it is fitted into the caldron itself, and the sideboards are fixed on thefront board and upon the transverse beam. Afterward, when the boardshave been lifted off, the helper places two baskets, two feet high and as manywide at the top, and a palm wide at the bottom, on the transverse beams,and into them the master throws the salt with a shovel, taking half-an-hourto fill them. Then, replacing the boards on the caldron, he allows the brineto boil for three quarters of an hour. Afterward the salt has again to beremoved with a shovel, and when the baskets are full, they pile up the salt inheaps.

In different localities the salt is moulded into different shapes. In thebaskets the salt assumes the form of a cone ; it is not moulded in basketsalone, but also in moulds into which they throw the salt, which are made in

♦The salt industry, founded upon salt springs, is still of importance to this city, bwas a salt centre of importance to the Germanic tribes before Charles, the son of Charlemagne,erected a fortress here in 806. Mention of the salt works is made in the charter by Otto !■>conveying the place to the Diocese of Magdeburg, in 968.