Show THE GREAT SAL 1AIR A Visit to the Inland Salt Gardens SALT BEDS A MILE IN LENGTH How the Salt Is Gathered Stacked ana Shipped the Big Pump at Work On invitation of Superintendent W W Riter of the Utah Nevada a reporter re-porter of THE HERALD yesterday accompanied ac-companied that gentleman and Manager Langford of the Inland Salt Company on a speoial over the Utah d Nevada to the great salt gardens at Saltair on the south shore of the Great Salt Lak To say that a surprise awaited the newspaper man would be feEble It was a revelation The Saltair spur leaves the main line at Keslers farm about fourteen miles from this city and runs two and a half miles directly north to the Salt mill The last mile of this track is bordered on either side with the broad ponds where the salt is extracted from tho watsr The whole place was alive with men all working fast or slow according as they were paid by the ton or by the day To open the subject at the beginning of the process the first thing to note is THE GREAT PUMP The pump which is situated at the northwest corner of the mill buildiog it a ten inch Centrifugal with an immense capacity The feeder is a deep ditch which brings the water from the lake about half a mile distant to the corner of the building There was not much i water in this ditch yesterday but still j there was enough to show the working of the pump At the request of Mr Riter the engineer started his ma chinry and when the big fly wheel had made two or three revolutions a great stream of water came gushing out of the pipe into the conducting canal twelve feet above the feeder It was a stream as big as City Creek and had I there been deeper water in the feed canal even a larger stream could have been brought up THE PONDS From the pumping station th water is carried to the east and to the west in I two large canals emb cng between them about 250 acres of salt ponds The outer ponds are considerably higher than those neater the rairoad track and are fed directly from the canals The outer ponds are used only for set ling and most of the dirt from the water is left in the bottom of these When all foreign matter has had a chance to sink these outer ponds are dtained into a second pond where the water stands until the evaporation is well advanced and finally when the percipitating point is about to be reached the water is arawn off into the ponds nearest the tracks and here it remains re-mains until the salt is formed As the water evaporates the salt is left in a crust on the bottom of the ponds about three inches thick As the bottom of the pond is of a clay that settles well none of it sticks to the salt or mixes with it GATHERING THE SALT In order to protect the salt crust from rain a sheeting of water is left over it until the workmen are ready to gather it When a pond is reached bv the gatherers the water is drained off into waste canals running along either side of the railroad track but there is always al-ways plenty of water in reserve in the upper ponds and at any time in the gathering season should a rain or dust storm arise the crust could be quickly covered with water and could be as well protected from impurities as if it were in a house The gathering aoason is now in full last and yesterday thirtyfive men were at work with shovels and wheelbarrows wheel-barrows stacking the salt or loading it into oars The salt crust spread out acre after acre in glassy fields is so hard that an ordinary tram car when not loaded is drawn over the surface by a mule leaving no more of a mark nan would be left in an ordinary well packEd dirt road The salt ffbioh is intended for snipping in its crude form is gathered by men with wheelbarrows The men workin piirs with two barrows One man doen the loading while the other does the wheeling and while one barrow load is being taken to the stack the other barrow is loaded These men all work by the job getting 30 cents per ton for stacking the salt along the aide ofthe track The average amount stacked by each man is from eight to twelve tons per day so the men make from 240 to 360 per diem at their work i GATHEBISG FOB THE MILL The salt for the mill is gathered in tram cars run on portable tracks and drawn by mules to the foot of the stack Here the track shoots up at an angle of 45 degrees to the top of an immense trestle work The cars are drawn to the top of this structure by the same enema that runs the pumps and thir contents are dumped onto thd pile below be-low At present only about three tons are hoisted at one time but as soon as things are in better working order five tons can be taken up each trip with ease There is already a little white I mountain under The trestle containing about 1500 tons of salt 1 THE REFINERY is not yet complete for want of a dryer One WIll be put in at once however and it is thought that the purest table and dairy salt in the world will be the result As soon as the dryer is in position posi-tion refined salt can be turned out with only one handling The salt will be shoveled into an elevator at the big stack carried thence to the crusher and discharged ready for packing all by machinery It can be produced at a very low cost and the Saltair people expect to supply the entire market of Utah at least with all grades of salt THIS YEARS CROP The water was not turned into the ponds for this years crop until June but still there are at least 50000 tons on hand of which 3000 tons ale already stacked The largest shipment yet made was one of200 tons of the crude salt to the Armour Packing Company at Omaha When asked how the Armour people liked his salt Manager Langford sid he didnt know They hadnt said anything any-thing about it they had simply sent on an order for 400 tons more LUMPS OF SALT THE product of the Siltair gardens analyzes 991 salt NEXT years crop will probably double that of the present year ABOUT 30000 has already been put into the plant at Saltair THE view from the top of the mill presents pre-sents a variety of scenery not caught from every housetop MR RITER says that Michigan salt will in tine become so dear as to make Chicago a possible market for Saltair saltTHE THE pump used at Saltair is of the pattern suggested for raising the sewage sew-age by the city There could be no question as to its success THE Saltair people are the only salt gatherers on the lake that do not depend de-pend upon the freaks of the waves for their supply of water They pump it up upMR MR LANGFORD thinks a salt palace could be constructed either from pressed bricks of salt or from board coated after they are put in place He says a strong solution of salt thrown on the building through a hose would coat the building well enough Neither of thee plans however would give a building tha would be proof against rain Any water that is less than 25 per cent salt would cause the salt to crumble |