Salt, Humble Seasoning,
Sustains Life, Industry
By DONALD J. FREDERICK
Salt once was traded ounce for ounce• 1th gold. As the
Roman statesman Cassiodorus observed, "Some seek
not gold, but there lives not a man who does not need
salt."
The Romans knew what they were talking about. The
humble saltshaker on the modern dinner table contains
the very essence of life.
A blend of sodium and chlorine, salt regulates the
exchange of water between human cells and the
surrounding fluid which carries food in and wastes out.
Sodium is involved in muscle contraction, including
heartbeats; in nerve impulses; in the digestion of
body-building protein.
Keeps Body Stable
Without salt the body goes into convulsions, paralysis,
death. Blood cells in a salt-free fluid burst.
The salt that keeps man alive does the same for
industry as the most essential of all raw materials,
reports Gordon Young in the National Geographic.
Only a pinch of salt, perhaps 5 percent of the world's
annual production, ends up as a seasoning on the dinner
table. Most of it pours into chemical plants where it leads
the five major raw materials used by industry: salt,
sulfur, limestone, coal and petroleum. Salt has some
14,000 industrial uses, more than any other mineral.
Salt pickles cucumbers-and metals; helps pack meat,
can vegetables, cure leather, make glass, bread, butter,
cheese, rubber, wood pulp.
As salt-or broken down into sodium and chlorine- it
goes into gargles, textiles, and rocket fuels; cosmetics,
paints, pharmaceuticals, and photography; soaps, dyes,
ceramics, batteries, adhesives, and explosives.
The freezing point of a saturate solution-21 degrees C
lower than that of fresh water-makes rock salt an
excellent refrigerant, snow melter, and freezer of ice
cream. And liquid sodium cools nuclear reactors.
May Store Wastes
The wastes from nuclear reactors may ultimately be
stored in salt beds deep beneath the surface of the earth.
Their dryness ability to withstand earthquakes, and a
melting point of 800 degrees C make salt deposits the
safest nuclear graveyards, scientists contend.
Salt already serves as a valuable storage facility. The
world's biggest warehouse near Hutchinson, Kan., was
carved from a worked-out portion of a salt mine. Owned
by the Underground Vaults and Storage Company, its 300
acres of storage bays reach 650 feet below the surface of
the earth.
A seed company sends down a bag or two of each new
strain it develops so no surface light may annihilate the
strain. Corporations store vital papers, microfilm documents,
product formulas. One also keeps folding cots and
a food supply, for use in case of nuclear war.
Other treasures salted away include more than 100,000
reels of classic films such as "Gone With The Wind,"
Bibles, furs, paintings, stamp and coin collections, and
wedding dresses.
"For a flat fee," says one of the company's executives,
"we'll store a bride's wedding gown for 21 years. The salt
air will preserve it - perennial 50 percent humidity and 68
degree temperature. Her daughter can get married in it.
Then, who knows, it may go underground again for the
next generation."
Men have credited salt with qualities far beyond price
for many generations. It betokens wit, wisdom, virility,
hospitality, sanctity. Homer dubbed it "divine;" Plato
hail£tf It as "a substance dear to the gods." And "Ye are
the salt of the earth," the Bible says.
Priced at Pennies
With salt among the earth's most abundant minerals
and priced today at pennies per pound, it's difficult to
believe it was once so precious and created so many
legends.
But ancient man had only limited access to it in the
form of brine that bubbled up, scarce surface deposits,
and some bay salt. Rising sea levels-ten feet in the first
millennia B.C. and A.D.-drowned coasts and solar salt
pans, causing salt famines.
Drilling-55 percent of U. S. production comes from
brine wells 750 to 7,000 feet deep-had to wait for
technology.
Even then it was unpredictable. To their disgust, early
salt drillers sometimes brought up nasty-smelling, sticky
black stuff "of no conceivable use whatever."
The "worthless" goo was oil.
CROSSWORD
PUZZLE
ACROSS
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partner
5 Procrastinate
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of —"
II Incentive
12 "The - Is
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13 Balanced
14 Come
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17 Watchful
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22 Encourage
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city
27 Long for
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of note
29 Cain was
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M Mature
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M Disorderly
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Arthur's
abode
41 Forearm
bone
42 Tranquil
41 (Had)
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44 Mortal or
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41 Room or
chamber
DOWN
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2 Winglike
I Frost
4 Vaudeville
performer
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5 Delaware
city
( Summer,
in Toulon
7 Typesetting
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for short
8 Maintain
9 Tokyo's
older name
11 Measuring
device
IS Toward
shelter
IS Spider
» Mineral
spring
20 Term of
endearment
21 Hospice
23 Kind of
rum
24 Night
preceding
25 Thrice
(Lat)
27 Role for Liz,
for short
29 Backbone
31 Satire
32 Army post
33 Microwave
34 Word with
glass or
table
36 'The Good
Earthheroine
37 Component
38 Sensible
40 Man's
nickname
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