This process, as will be seen, involved the use of much slower fires than were usually employed in Cheshire, and allowed the liquor to simmer instead of boiling for a longer period. For this purpose, Mr. Lowndes proposed to use a large proportion of cinders in his furnaces, “since long boiling with great fires not only deprives salt of its spirit and strength, but causes its grain to become loose and soft, since cinders are better than coals in preserving a constant, equal, and gentle heat.” In order to correct the ill-effects suffered by the salt through being made in an enclosed, intensely hot room, filled with steam and smoke, he had recourse to the use of alum, which, he claimed, would restore to the salt its “natural cubical shoot and give it a proper hardness.” He further claimed that by this process the hot-houses or drying-houses could be dispensed with, waste in carriage would be avoided, and the pans would last three times as long; while, in order to anticipate the inevitable objections of the salt-makers and dispel the pretended difficulties that the workmen would find in executing his directions, the inventor explained that he had been careful to accommodate his process, as near as possible, “to the present practice in Cheshire.” At the request of the Admiralty, the College of Physicians conducted several examinations of salt made by the Lowndes process, and reported that it was “in all respects, a strong and pure salt, equal at least, if not preferable to any we are acquainted with.” On the strength of this testimonial, Mr. Lowndes applied to the Admiralty to allow him a six months’ trial to prove the goodness of his salt for domestic purposes, twelve months to prove its excellence for the purpose of the Fishery of America, and two years in which to prove its efficacy in preserving beef and pork for the Royal Navy. If in this series of tests it should be proved that salt made by his process equalled French bay-salt, he proposed that they should pay him a total sum of £7,000, and should the trials demonstrate the slightest inferiority, he would be content to make his country a present of his labours. When the Admiralty declined to enter into negotiations with him, Mr. Lowndes laid his scheme before the House of Commons, which petitioned the King to instruct the Admiralty to make the tests on the inventor’s terms, but the sudden death of Lowndes in 1748 closed the controversy.