This town of Limington is chiefly noted for making fine salt, which is indeed excellent good; and from whence all these south parts of England are supply’d, as well by water as by land carriage; and sometimes, tho’ not often, they send salt to London".

"The Saltern proper was a large tract of perfectly flat land, divided into shallow ponds, about twenty feet square, by low mud-banks about six inches high, just wide enough for a man to walk upon with caution.

Into these the water was baled, by large wooden scoops, from ponds which had caught the salt water at high tide; and here it lay, evaporating more or less quickly, according to the favourable or adverse weather. In various parts of the works were small windmills, about twelve or fourteen feet high, which, whirling with the continual and varying sea breezes, pumped the water into different sets of pans, as it approached nearer to the condition of brine, and at last lifted it into large cisterns, whence it ran, by gravitation, into the boiling-houses.

These latter were merely large brick-built sheds, with low weather-beaten walls, upholding a wide expanse of tiled roof, under which were the pans and furnaces. A cloud of steam filled the boiling-house when working; salt impregnated the air; and the roads all around were black with coal-ashes from the furnaces, which had for generation after generation been incessantly burning".

The principal manufacture of this town is salt, but this has been of late years sensibly on the decline, owing to the superiority of the same species of commodity in the Liverpool market, and the depressed prices at which the latter retail it. Where, about thirty-five years ago, a dozen salterns were in full play, there are now not more than three employed, and those on a scale far inferior to that on which they were conducted six years since. Indeed, within the last nine months, the Lymington manufacturers have imported salt from Liverpool, to retail at home; so that it is probable, in the course of a few years, the salt works here will be wholly disused. Some years back, these salterns paid into the exchequer, for duty alone, the enormous sum of £ 50,000 per annum, which at once shows the great trade they must at that period have enjoyed. The method, by which salt is here made, is very simple. The sea water is first pumped into shallow quadrilateral reservoirs of earth, called salt pans; in these it remains exposed to the rays of the sun, till the quantity of water is sensibly reduced, so as to leave the remainder considerably stronger of saline than when first introduced into them. It is then, by the instrumentality of a forcing pump, which is excited by flyers, on a principle similar to that of the wind-mill, conducted into large flat iron pans, from six to eight inches deep; these are placed over a fierce fire, and the brine is suffered to boil till it almost wholly evaporates in steam. The sediment that remains at the bottom, is the salt, which is afterwards housed and dried.

The medicinal or Epsom salts made here, which are a preparation from what is decomposed from the culinary commodity, may be considered the purest in England; and Mr. West, banker and merchant, of this town, after many years' persevering attention to the subject, has brought them to a high state of perfection.

The seawater they draw into trenches and so into several ponds that are secured in the bottom to retain it, and it stands in the sun to exhale the watery part of it, and if it prove a dry summer they make the best and most salt, for the rain spoils the ponds by weakening the salt.

When they think its fit to boil they draw off the water from the ponds by pipes which conveys it into a house full of large square iron and copper pans; they are shallow but they are a yard or two if not more square, these are fixed in rows one by another it may be twenty on a side, in a house under which is the furnace that burns fiercely to keep these pans boiling apace, and as it candy's about the edges or bottom so they shovel it up and fill it in great baskets and so the thinner part runs through on moulds they set to catch it, which they call salt cakes'.

The rest in the baskets dry and is very good salt and as fast as they shovel the boiling salt out of the pans they do replenish it with more of their salt water in their pipes. They told me when the season was dry and so the salt water in its prime they could make 60 quarters of salt in one of those pans which they constantly attend night and day all the while the fire is in the furnace, because it would burn to waste and spoil the pans which by their constant use wants often to be repaired. They leave off saturday night and let out the fire and so begin and kindle their fire Monday morning, its a pretty charge to light the fire.

Their season for making salt is not above 4 or 5 months in the year and that is only in a dry summer. These houses have above 20 some 30 more of these pans in them, they are made of copper.

They are very careful to keep their ponds well secured and mended by good clay and gravel in the bottom and sides and so by sluices they fill them out of the sea at high-tides and so conveyed from pond to pond till fit to boil'.

Medicinal (Epsom) salts are also manufactured here in great purity; but, as this branch of the business is wholly dependent on the other, it has also declined in like proportion.

It might not be improper to notice here, the process by which each of these useful articles is produced.

In the manufacture of salt, the first thing that is necessary, is the admission of sea-water into reservoirs, called feeding ponds. From these it is allowed to run, at stated intervals, into square shallow flats, or pans, varying in size from 25 to 120 square yards:— here it is exposed to the action of the sun and wind, and changed from one set of pans to another, six different times; until it is rendered, by evaporation, sufficiently strong for Usenet is then denominated liquor. Its increase of strength is denoted by glass globes, numbered from 4 to 8. (As a substitute for the glass globes, small pieces of wax of a conical shape, and loaded with lead, are frequently used). These float on its surface, according to the specific gravity of each, and the concentration of saline particles in the liquor. It is then thrown up by a common pump, or the aid of a windmill applied to a pump of larger calibre, into cisterns, and kept for boiling.

It is worthy of remark, that in this method of preparing brine to make salt, everything depends on the state of the weather; a humid or cloudy atmosphere, and copious dews at night, being alike inimical to it in every stage. Hence, as before observed, the northern manufacturers possess incalculable advantages; their brine being already prepared for them in the bowels of the earth. The weather also involves the works here in great uncertainty, as some seasons they can boil fifteen or twenty weeks, and at other times not more than ten;—a species of inconvenience to which their competitors are never subjected.

From the cisterns, the liquor is again pumped as required, into a reservoir (a clearer) and from thence conveyed, by wooden pipes, into the boiling pans. These are formed of plates of sheet-iron, and are about eight feet square, by nine inches deep. The pans being charged with liquor, to within about three inches of the margin, a fierce fire is applied till it boils. It is kept boiling about an hour, during which time the impurities are removed from the surface. As soon as granulations of salt make their appearance, the fire is damped and a simmering ensues, until the whole of the liquor has evaporated. The salt is then removed into troughs to drain, after which it is warehoused for sale.

The whole of this process occupies eight hours, and the workmen usually continue boiling from Monday morning until Saturday without intermission. The boiling houses vary in size, from two to eight pans, and about fifty years since, there were some containing fourteen, sixteen, and even twenty pans.

The fluid that issues from the salt, whilst draining, is called bitter liquor, and passes into covered cisterns, or bitter pits; and during the winter, is converted into Epsom salts, in the following manner. The pans are filled early in the morning, made to boil, and the impurities taken off. The fire is then withdraw. On the following morning, the liquor is drawn out by a syphon, and conveyed into coolers, about sixteen inches deep, where crystallization immediately commences. There it remains about a week: the liquor is then let off into the bitter pit, and boiled again and again, till the whole of its strength is extracted.

The salts produced by this simple method, are too well known to need a description here. The manufacturers usually refine them. This is done by dissolving a certain quantity in spring water, boiling it in a copper, and drawing it off into coolers, as before. These are called doubles, and are again refined, by repeating a similar process, and the addition of sulphuric acid; by which a precipitation of muriate of soda is promoted, and the salts are, in consequence, less liable to deliquesce.