OCR Text |
Show WEST BUYS UTAH SALT - - p f t N if . ' Z '. T" " - --v s.fwj ! p,.-.-: c C-yai !--- ' 'anl s i x 0. , ' Harvestmq Salt Near I Great Salt Lake By I. A. CLAYTON, JR. SALT, like gold, occurs almost everywhere in waters of the sea, in the earth's strata, in rocks yet its profitable extraction is rare. Utah is one of the places where it occurs in abundance, comprises com-prises an important resource and supports a major industry. The Great Salt lake is the center cen-ter of one of the world's greatest deposits, with enough salt to supply sup-ply future generations for thousands thou-sands of years. The saline content of its water varies from 15 to 25 and the brine is so dense that the human body floats easily on its surface. It contains no life. So easily is salt obtained from the lake that there has been little incentive to exploit the numerous beds and domes in other parts of Utah. Salt production is one of the state's oldest industries. The first settlers gathered the crystals left by evaporation in the natural basins around the lake. In 1860 and after, dams were built to Impound Im-pound the water. As the demand Increased production produc-tion was organized and much capital capi-tal invested. The Inland Salt Company Com-pany was formed in 1889. It was succeeded in 1899 by the Inland Crystal Salt company, which, In 1927, became the Royal Crystal Salt company. The Salt Lake Chemical Company, a subsidiary of the Diamond Match company, began operations on the southern shore of the lake in 1916, primarily to produce potash for war purposes. pur-poses. The Morton Salt company took over that property in 1918 and has operated it since as a salt plant. Whether tho salt in the lake originated through evaporation or volcanic action, or both, is in dispute. dis-pute. The lake, averaging only 15 feet in depth, its proportion of salt varies from year to year with the rainfall. Though sodium chloride (common salt) is the sole commercial com-mercial product of the lake, steps are under way to recover sodium sulphate, whose proportion is next to the sodium chloride, and thus establish a new industry in Utah. Variation in the density at which different chemicals precipitate permits per-mits selective concentration, segregation segre-gation of salt of the highest purity and the removal of . magnesium, calcium and other unwanted elements. ele-ments. During the evaporation season, from April to mid-September, brine is pumped at the rate of 5,000 gallons gal-lons a minute 24 hours a day from the lake into a flume. From settling ponds, it passes, after five or six days, to concentrating ponds of 250 acres each. The saturated brine flows by gravity to 20 crystallizing ponds, each of 10 acres area. Here the salt crystals form and the "bitterns" "bit-terns" (other chemicals in solution) solu-tion) are run off before they reach the saturation stage. A permanent floor of salt is maintained in each pond. In the late fall, after a pond has been thoroughly drained, ordinary ordi-nary plows drawn by tractors, loosen the new salt from the floor. With scrapers and conveyor It is stacked by a railroad siding and "weathered" until needed at the mill. An average anmufl crop Is about four inches of salt. The mill has a capacity of 50,000 tons a season. From a receiving storage bin the salt passes through a rotating kiln drier (heated to 300 deg.) and to a cooler, from which it goes to the stock bin. Various sets of rolls crush and size it into nine sizes, each of which occupies a separate bin. Thence it is fed automatically into sacks and packages pack-ages for marketing. The territory served by Utah's salt industry, extends from Denver, Colorado, to Washington, Oregon and part of California, covering the Black Hills, in South Dakota, and the Rocky Mountain states. It gives steady employment to more than 125 people, with a payroll of more than $200,000 a year, and spends further amounts for the supplies, power and fuel it requires. re-quires. The bulk of the output, going to other states, brings much new money into Utah, iocal salt companies pay the railroads about one-half million dollrrs a year for transportation. Salt is pressed into blocks, sometimes some-times with the addition of phosphate phos-phate for livestock feeding; smoked, it is used for the complete sugar cure of meat, and with iodine, it is recommended by the medical profession for the prevention pre-vention of goiter. Over 40 of the school children of Utah are said to be afflicted with this thyroid deficiency. A special kind of salt is iodized for animals. Since the early days of Utah, salt has been mined in Sevier and Sanpete counties, where the mineral min-eral occurs in beds overlain with ten feet or more of earth. This salt is recovered by "stripping" or "quarry mining". Some salt was obtained from the great salt bed at Wendover, 110 miles west of Salt Lake City, but commercial production produc-tion Is no longer maintained there. Intricate selling problems and the restrictions imposed by freight rates constantly confront the industry in-dustry in Utah. On their solution and friendly consideration at home depends an important market for labor and source of revenue. |