Salsify

“ They may remain in the ground over winter, to be taken up whenever the frost permits or they may be taken up in late autumn and preserved in sand in a cellar. Good salsify is in demand where its merits are known. ”

“ It is then time to strain out [642] the shreds of meat and bone, return the soup to the pot, and add the vegetables. First, have ready the deep yellow outsides of three or four carrots grated, and stir them into the soup to enrich it, and give it a fine color. Next, add turnips, potatos, parsnips, salsify, celery, (including its green leaves from the top) and onions that have been already peeled and boiled by themselves to render them less strong. All the vegetables should be cut nicely into small pieces of equal size, (as for Soup à la Julienne.) ”

“ THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SALT INDUSTRY Salt, being existent in all animal and vegetable life, is coeval with life itself; it was present in the first herbage which gave nourishment to the first beast that, in its turn, became food for the first omnivorous man. In the beginning, man consumed the saline essences that were required to preserve his body in health, in the form of sodium chloride, which he absorbed in the uncooked flesh of animals, birds, and fishes, and in raw green-foods. ”

“ Let it be clearly understood that all commercial salt is produced either from the sea or from rock-salt. Sea-water is evaporated to precipitate its salt either by the heat of the sun or by artificial heat. Rock-salt is mined and refined for market purposes, and it is resolved into brine from which the salt is extracted by solar heat or the process of boiling, but whether the salines are obtained from salt lakes or from natural brine springs, or are prepared by flooding salt deposits with water and pumping it out in the form of fully saturated brine, rock-salt is the foundation for them all. ”

“ Saltwort, or Salsola, (salsus, salt) is chiefly maritime, and the kelp of our shores is principally obtained from it. At one time the carbonate of soda was derived from this kelp or barilla, the ashes being obtained from burning sea-weeds and a species of Salsola; but now it is almost invariably made from common salt, by adding sulphuric acid, and so converting the chloride of sodium into a sulphate, and afterwards, by combustion with chalk and small coal, resolving it into a sulphide, and then into a carbonate. It is manufactured on a very large scale, and is an important staple of commerce. ”

“ Of course, the sodium chloride in the flesh of the herbivora and frugivora is obtained from the vegetable matter forming their food, and very few of them have the opportunity of obtaining it from salt-licks and mineral sources. They must have the power of storing up the sodium chloride from plants in sufficient quantity, whilst the potash salts pass away. There is no justification for saying that they are worse off by being deprived of salt. If the ape tribe can thrive without added salt why should not man? Bunge considers that a restriction to vegetable food causes a great desire for salt. ”

“ It is largely owing to its preservative property that common salt is an absolute necessity to the life of man and the higher animals, from a quarter to half an ounce a day being sufficient to prevent the putrefaction of food in the digestive tract in the case of an adult. In agriculture, salt is not only valuable as a destroyer of weeds and insect life, but used sparingly and with knowledge, it forms an excellent manure; while its more strictly chemical value in the manufacture of soda, chlorine, etc., causes it to play an important part in many branches of industry. ”

“ The Use of Salt.—One of the most remarkable habits of these times is the extensive use of common salt or sodium chloride. It is in all ordinary shop bread, in large quantity in a special and much advertised cereal food, even in a largely sold wheat flour, and often in pastry. It is added to nearly all savoury vegetable food, and many persons, not content, add still more at the time of eating. No dinner table is considered complete without one or more salt-cellars. Some take even threequarters of an ounce, or an ounce per day. ”

“ In the old cliff dwellings are found peculiar little bags containing salt; and at the present time a certain amount of the mineral, when brought to the villages, is set aside as sacred and preserved in little bags almost identical with those found in the ancient dwellings.
Where men live on milk and raw or roasted flesh, sodium chloride is an unnecessary addition. Thus the Numidian nomads in the past did not, and the Bedouins of Hadramant of the present do not, eat salt with their food. On the other hand, a cereal, vegetable, and boiled meat diet calls for salt. ”

“ As you walk along on top of them, you can smell a faint violet perfume from the salt. Thatch is put over the cones to protect them from the rain, and there they stand till some of the impurities drain away. This salt is not perfectly white, [Pg 98] because the workmen cannot help scraping up a little of the gray or reddish clay with it. Most of it is sold as it is, nevertheless, for many people have an absurd notion that the darker it is the purer it is. For those who wish to buy white salt it is sent to a refinery to be washed with pure water, then boiled down and dried. ”

“ The facts that the chief accompaniment of every known deposit of rock-salt is clay, and that clay is deposited in water, formed the basis of the erroneous theory that because salt is a deposit out of water, and sea-water contains salt, all salt beds must have been deposited in the sea. But salt does not mix mechanically with water and has not been deposited like sedimentary rocks; it forms a solution, and not until the solution becomes super-saturated does it crystallize out. Now sea-water rarely contains more than 31⁄2 per cent. ”

“ Physiology has been a boon to humanity and an inexhaustible field of research to the scientific.
In a chemical point of view there is no more important mineral constituent in the human body than the chloride of sodium, for it occurs nearly in every part of the system, both solid and fluid, in close and intimate relation with the organic compounds, and it materially influences their chemical and physical properties; for instance, the albumen partly owes its solubility to the presence of salt, the quantity of which causes the differences which it presents as regards its coagulation ”

“ In order to understand the full importance of the extraction of salt, it need only be mentioned that on the average 20 lbs. of table salt are consumed yearly per head of population, directly in food or for cattle. In those countries where common salt is employed in technical processes, and especially in England, almost an equal quantity is consumed in the production of substances containing chlorine and sodium, and especially in the manufacture of washing soda, &c., and of chlorine compounds (bleaching powder and hydrochloric acid) . ”

“ Salt-petre is separated from the brine which first affords it, or from the water with which it is washed out of nitrous earths, by the process commonly used in crystallizing salts. In this process the brine is gradually diminished, and at length reduced to a small quantity of an unctuous bitter saline liquor, affording no more salt-petre by evaporation; but, if urged with a brisk fire, drying up into a confused mass which attracts water strongly, and becomes fluid again when exposed to the open air. ”

“ A very serious difficulty presents itself in the great thickness of many strata of salt; which, if regarded as the solid residuum of sea-water, must have necessarily required a proportionate volume of water, unless the seas of those distant periods contained a larger amount of saline ingredients than they do at the present time: an inference for which there are no reasonable grounds.
Wherever there are deposits of the chloride of sodium, they are almost always accompanied with layers and intercalations of gypsum ”

“ Salt is rarely if ever ob- tained pure. The chief impurities in rock salt are sulphate of lime, oxide of iron, and clay; but besides these the chlorides of potassium, calcium, and magnesium, the sulphates of soda and magnesia, and bituminous matters are occasionally met with, and some varieties are even colored by the presence of infusoria. In salt made from sea water, the salts of magnesia with a little sulphate of lime are the principal impurities. All the varieties of salt occasionally contain minute quantities of bromides and iodides. ”

“ This is generally effected by adding the calculated amount of potassium chloride (of which immense quantities are obtained as a by-product in the Stassfurt salt industry) dissolved in hot water to a saturated boiling solution of sodium nitrate; the common salt, which separates on boiling down the solution, is removed from the hot solution and on cooling the potassium nitrate crystallizes out and is separated and dried.
As found in nature, saltpetre generally forms aggregates of delicate acicular crystals, and sometimes silky tufts; distinctly developed crystals are not found in nature. ”

“ The large grained, flaky salt was made with an evaporation conducted at the heat of 130 or 140 degrees, and the pan was filled once in every forty-eight hours; while in the case of fishery salt, the brine was brought to a heat of from 100 to 110 degrees of Fahrenheit, and five or six days were required to evaporate the water of solution. In the course of these several processes, various additions were often made to the brine, with the view of promoting the separation of any earthy mixture, or the more ready crystallization of the salt. ”

“ Salicylic acid is now never given internally, being replaced by its sodium salt, which is much cheaper, more soluble and less irritating to mucous membranes. The salt has a sweet, mawkish taste.
Salicylic acid and salicin (q.v.) share the properties common to the group of aromatic acids, which, as a group, are antiseptic without eing toxic to man-a property practically unique; are unstable in the body; are antipyfetic and analgesic; and diminish the excretion of urea by the kidneys. ”

“ Here alone we have the beds of pure rock-salt. As we come nearer the surface, the presence of the earthy chlorides is more marked, and the product is less valuable, because, by reason of its attracting more moisture from the air, it is rendered unfit for the dairy or the table unless it goes through a process of purification. The conclusion that we must reach, therefore, is, that the deeper the boring goes, the purer the salt will be, whether it is in Michigan or in New York. ”

“ It will be borne on the surface like a boat (if the liquid be quiescent) because it will grow more from the upper edges. We can thus understand this, at first sight, strange funnel-form of crystallized salt. To explain why the crystallization under the above conditions begins at the surface and not at the lower edges, it must be mentioned that the specific gravity of a crystal of sodium chloride is 2·16, and that a solution saturated at 25° contains 26·7 per cent. of salt and has a specific gravity 1·2004 at 25°; at 15° a saturated solution6 contains 26·5 per cent. ”

“ Everything, as is well known, can be used and abused, and salt, like other natural productions, owing to human avarice, can be put to a purpose so as to derange and render nugatory the laws of health. We know full well that salt completely arrests the formation of putrescent larvæ in meat, if it is rubbed in when fresh, or if it is well soaked in strong brine; and if the meat is bordering on decomposition, we may prevent it proceeding to a more advanced stage by immersing it in brine; still it is not in a condition fit for human consumption. ”

“ Mere desiccation, indeed, can hardly ever be employed upon flesh. Culinary salt is generally had recourse to, either alone or with the addition of saltpetre or sugar.
These alkaline salts abstract water in their solution, and, consequently, concentrate the aqueous solution of the albumen; whence, by converting the simple watery fluid into salt water, which is in general less favourable to the fermentation of animal matter than pure water, and by expelling the air, they counteract putridity. On this account, salted meat may be dried in the air much more speedily and safely than fresh meat. ”

“ A method of promoting the preservation of fish by salt by the aid of sodium hypochlorite along with the salt has been patented. The original idea, it is understood, was to decompose the salt in sea water by electrolysis, sodium hypochlorite being formed. It was claimed that the sodium hypochlorite penetrates faster than ordinary salt. This substance contains some oxygen that may be given off to act as a sterilizing agent, and after the oxygen is given off ordinary salt or sodium chloride remains. ”

“ It shows that by the judicious selection of salt, not on the basis of its cheapness but on the basis of composition, one can produce a salt fish of almost any desired quality. If salting is to be done in very warm weather it will be necessary to use the purest grade of salt to secure very rapid penetration. In this way a soft, yellowish fish of excellent quality is obtained. Where weather is cool enough to permit, a salt containing more calcium and magnesium may be used, in which case a whiter and firmer fish will be produced. ”