Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

 Ti ft 334 BRITAIN the brine, and prevent it from the household, fishery, or other salt for drawing, the waller, as he is become too large, and the salt layer at the pan, bottom would act as a non-conductor of heat to boiling. When is ready called, rakes it to the pan side, and with his skimmer—or sieve-like spade—shovels the salt upon the platform or hurdle that fringes the pan. The brine drains through pierced spade, and the salt, heaped on hurdle, is taken to the storehouse, or placed in moulds and dried in the familiar shape of the lump of salt that one sees carted about for sale in every city. “ What wages do the salt boilers get ? ” is met with the rather indefinite reply, “ As much as they can earn.” the the AT WORK. better conditions than the coal miner, and are in less peril, for the air is pure in the mine, and there is no risk from fall of brine or from gaseous explosion. Branching' off the main street and going up the slope past the corrugated iron mission- room, you are at the mouth of the Baron’s Quay Mine. Ihe roof of the engine-house covers the mine shaft, or rather the two shafts used for drawing. The engine man, satisfied with your introduction, places his SALT PAN. DRAWING SALT OUT OF PAN. Really they are better paid than the rock- salt miners, averaging from thirty to thirty- five shillings per week ; and they deserve what they receive, considering the intense heat in which they labour. In olden time the salters of Scotland, making salt from sea-water, were bound by law, on entering the works, to perpetual service; and even in the case of the sale or alienation of the ground on which the works were situated the right of their labour, without any express grant, passed to the purchaser. But the salt miners are in no such servitude. Though their toil is hard, they are paid a fair price for their work, at the rate of four-ancl-sixpence for the eight-hours day. I hey labour in of his knife blade on the mouth over the near shaft, and with the lungs of Thor, the god of thunder, shouts “ G-e-o-r-g-e ! ” His voice, stentorian, echoes all around you and rings far away down the shaft, for some time in vain ; but eventually George, or his substitute, telephones with two or three clicks, as suspended chain, and you prepare to go below. The rock salt is buckets, similar in shape to the domestic article, but much larger, and particularly much deeper. There is a special bucket, however, for people who have the privilege of explora- tion. It is nearly five feet high, padded, and has a door through which you gain admission to the perpendicular vehicle. You enter it as it swings at the mouth of the shaft, and are reminded of Diogenes in his tub! You are warned to crouch, to dip your shoulders, to bend your head ; and, the signal given, away you go into the darkness, with the hauled out of the mine in