History of Salt

Salt is existent in all animal and vegetable life and is coeval with life itself. It must
have been present in the first herbage that gave nourishment to the first beast. The
history of salt is thus the history of civilization on earth. The Roman legions were paid
money for salt and from Sal-dare (to give salt) is derived the Latin word salarium
meaning “salt money”. Cakes of salt have been used as money in Abyssinia and in some
other parts of Africa. The Sanskrit word for salt is “lavana” to which ‘Nun’, the common
Punjabi word for salt, owes its origin, susruta, the father of Indian medicine, speaks of
four kinds of salts which respond with rock salt, sea salt, lake salt and earth salt
respectively. Egyptians salted ducks, quails and sardines, they also preserved the boiling
of salt of their illustrious dead (Egyptian mummies) in salt. The Babylonians also knew
the use of salt. Even now salt is produced in china in solar evaporation. In Japan the
manufacture of salt by boiling etc we introduced some 2000 years ago. The age-old
adage ‘worthy of his salt’ or ‘true eto his salt’ proves the importance attached to this
commodity from times immemorial. We find present day conversations salted down so to
speak with similes such as the expression: “take that statement with a grain of salt”,
what the man really means is to make allowance for stretching of the truth. Mythology
and religion have been flavored with salt. Gods were worshipped as the providers of
bread and salt. In India manufacture of salt along the seacoast in Bengal, Bombay,
Madras and the rann of Kutch, flourished as a cottage industry for centuries. In his
“Early History of Bengal”, Mr. Manahan gives passage from ‘Arthasastra’ – Book dealing
with the history of the Mauryan period (300 B.C)- which says that salt manufacture was
even at that distant date supervised by a State Official named ‘Lavanadhyaksa’ and the
business was carried on under a system of licenses granted on the payment of fixed fees
or part of the output.

Common Salt – Properties and Uses

Sodium chloride (Nacl) now called common salt is an example of the simplest type
of chemical salt. a molecule of common salt contains an atom of chlorine combined with
23 parts by weight of sodium to form 58.5 parts of common salt., Rock salt is rarely
found in an absolutely pure anhydrous state in which it is colourless and perfectly
transparent. In most rock salt, mines such specimens are considered curiosities. In
Wieliczka mine in Poland and in Khewra mine in the Punjab large masses of salt
containing over 99 percent Nacl are met with. In the Punjab mines we meet with salt of
different colours such as white, pink, darkish or red. The colour disappears when salt is
crushed to powder. The colour of seawater is affected by the percentage of salt in it; as
the quantity of salt decreases, the colour changes from blue to green. Salt is met with in
any colours; white, pink, red, brown, greenish and grey. The red or green colour is
attributed to the presence of infusoria.

Salt is highly soluble in water, 100 parts of which dissolve 37 parts of salt. The
specific gravity of such solution 1:2, the specific gravity of salt crystals is 2.16. The
smallest quantity perceptible to taste is 68 grains of salt dissolved in a gallon of water.

Pure Sodium Chloride is not deliquescent. It, however, absorbs moisture owing to
the presence of magnesium chloride.

Sodium Chloride melts at very high temperature, at still higher temperatures it

evaporates and at white heat it volatilizes forming thick clouds. It does not diffuse much,
even when masses of varying densities are super-imposed on one another.

Salt is fairly hard. there is no standard unit fixed for hardness. Geologists,
however, compare the hardness of minerals by a comparative table (Moh’s table of
hardness) according to which the hardness of talc is considered as one and that of
diamond ten. According to this standard the hardness of salt is 2.5. Its cohesion or
power of supporting pressure is twice as great as that of bricks.

Common salt is a crystalline substance: crystals generally form cubes and

sometimes they form octahedrons. The form of crystals depends on temperature, state
of rest or motion, length of time etc. Salt has a perfect cleavage. It splits up readily in to
planes parallel to the faces of the cubes of which it is composed.
 Salt has acoustic properties as well that is to say; it is a good medium for the
transmission of sound. Workmen in a salt mine are able to signal by blows on the face of
the rock. Salt possesses in a high degree the power of staying decomposition in dead
organisms and is the commonest of all preservatives. Owing to this property it is an
absolute necessity to the life of man and the higher animals.

Salt water trickling through the roof of a working also forms stalactites and
stalagmites just as time-stone forms them. In Khewra mine we meet with long hollow
tubes of salt formed by the brine trickling drop by drop through the roof.

Rock salt has many minerals associates with it: for instance, gypsum, sodium
sulphate, magnesium sulphate and magnesium chloride. In the Khewra mine, salt is
found mixed with variously cioloured clays, white pink, red, variegated gypsum beds,
limestone, and magnesium sulphate. Bad salt is associated with magnesium sulphate
and good salt with calcium chloride. A cube foot of pure rock salt weight about 25 to 27
kgs.

Common salt is a necessity of life. It imparts an agreeable flavour and improves

the taste of food and is used as a condiment. it may be interesting to know how exactly
salt consumed in its natural or artificial form functions in the human body. It is Iodised
by infusion of minute doses of potassium iodide about .02% as prophylaxis for Goitre
Similarly, it is medicated with phosphates or other ingredients to regulate the
deficiencies in human system. Salt, in short, is a preserver health. Lord Lawrence, in his
evidence before the Select Committee on East India Finance in 1873, attributed the
prevalence of murrain in the Indian cattle to the want of salt in their food. It was used as
chemical manure long before the Christian era and its value was recognized throughout
Europe. the ancient Hebrews applied it as a manure over 2,000 years ago in Palestine
and so did that eminently agricultural people in Chinese and do still to this day. The old
Romans too used it as manure. In India its use in agriculture is rather looked on with
disfavour. Mr. Arthur Young, an outstanding figure in the history of English and even
European agricultural renaissance, considered salt of great value as fertilizer.

The use of salt in modern industries is equally or perhaps more important. A

number of arts and manufacturers of modern civilizations owe their existences to salt. In
short, salt is indispensable to industrial advance.