The first recorded legislation is probably that enacted in the early days of ancient Rome. Soon after the foundation of the city, the salt works of Ostia were established at the mouth of the Tiber, but the price demanded was so extortionately high that about a hundred years later the right of vending was transferred to the government, and private individuals were forbidden to engage in its preparation. The revenue derived was very great and contributed materially to the support of Rome.
Venice also was noted for her salt works, and to them is traced much of her mari time power.
The first American factory was that started in Virginia in 1633. Eight years later, Massachusetts gave the exclusive right to manufacture salt in that state to Samuel Winslow—though, despite this grant, works were set up all along the coast, the product being in great demand to supply the fisheries then beginning to assume considerable magnitude.
Many attempts were made to obtain salt from springs—in Pennsylvania in 1784, in New York in 1788, in Louisiana in 1791, in what is now West Virginia in 1797, and in Ohio in 1798, but the first efforts met with only small success and up to 1812 most of our domestic salt was drawn from ocean water. Since that date, conditions have been entirely revolutionized.
The Onondaga salines in New York State, situated near the towns of Syracuse, Salina and Geddes, were first worked in 1790, but were discovered as early as 1654 by French Jesuits who were prosecuting their perilous mission in the countries of the Onondagas and Iroquois. During the 19th century, they constituted an important source of supply, a total of about 430 million bushels being extracted. They belonged to the state up to 1909, manufacturers paying a royalty of one cent per bushel. The
competition of other centers has rendered them commercially unprofitable for general production, but a considerable quantity of Solar Salt is still manufactured there.
California began her harvest in 1852 with sea water, and Utah in 1847 on the shores of Great Salt Lake. Kansas made its first salt from the marshes, but in 1887 a body of rock salt was found by prospectors for petroleum and extensive mines were developed. On Avery Island, La., a similar rock vein has been known and worked for more than a hundred years—the Confederates got twenty-two million pounds of salt from it in eleven months during the war. Michigan bored- her first well in 1859, at East Saginaw.
There is no danger of the race ever having to do without salt. Even if the ocean were not on every side, various parts of the world—including this conti nent — offer practically inexhaustible land deposits and supplies of it.
Salt has always been the synonym for wit and piquancy, hence the term "Attic Salt." Shakespeare says : "Though we are justices and doctors and church men, we have some salt of our youth in us." It was formerly considered a very unlucky omen to upset the salt-cellar at the table, and to sit at the table "above the salt" was a position of honor, the old custom being to place a salt-cellar in the middle of the table, the places above which were assigned to the guests of dis tinction, while those "below the salt" were dependents and servants. Hence the expression of Ben Jonson, "His fashion is not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in clothes. He never drinks below the salt." Salt should always be kept in a cool dry place.