“If it is asked why we use not iron pans as in Cheshire,” Dr. Rastel concludes, “I answer there have been trials made of both forged iron pans and cast iron. The former the strength of the brine so corrodes, that it quickly wears them out, the latter the brine breaks.” The first serious attempt to effect a real improvement in the making of salt from brine was communicated to the Lords of the Admiralty in 1746 by Thomas Lowndes, and under the title of “BRINE SALT IMPROVED or the Method of Making Salt from Brine, that shall be as good or better than FRENCH BAY-SALT.” It was published in the same year in a handsomely printed, block-type brochure of 40 pages by S. Austin, of Newgate Street, Lowndes, who had spent his infancy in Middlewich and had acquired in his youth a thorough acquaintance with the Cheshire manner of salt-making, employed several years in travelling in France, during which he studied the process employed in the making of salt by solar evaporation from sea-water in the neighbourhood of Rochelle. At this time the bay-salt of Rochelle was regarded by merchants, victuallers, and fishermen as the best in Europe. He afterwards visited Holland for the purpose of ascertaining why the Dutch white herrings were superior to those cured in England, and he learned that the cause was explained by the method employed by the Dutch in purifying their salt. Armed with the knowledge he had acquired in France and Holland, and allowing for the difference between the French, Dutch, and English brines, Lowndes offered to enter into an agreement with the Admiralty to supply them with a better article than the French bay-salt, made by the following process--