Saline Salt
Robert Lawrence and Edmund Stephens, two graduate students of geology from Columbia University, organized the Saline Salt Company in 1974. Keeping in mind the fact that every 1,000 grams of seawater contains approximately 35 grams of various salts, the two men pictured limitless wealth for them by extracting these salts. Common table salt comprises 27 grams out of each 35 grams and is easy to extract; so, the men decided to begin producing it.
They picked New Iberia, Louisiana as the ideal location. Their reasons for choosing New Iberia were:
It is located at the Gulf of Mexico.
The Labor supply is abundant.
The wages in that part of the country are lower than in most sections.
Technical reports gave the following analysis of Gulf waters:
“Although the material held in solution by the water of the Gulf of Mexico is not found in combination as salts, such as produced on evaporation, but rather in the form of ions, the basic elements and the acid radicals being separated, nevertheless it is customary and convenient to consider them as combined into the form of salts. Among these, common salt, or sodium chloride, makes up the bulk of the material, being nearly 78 percent of the total mass of salt, or over 27 mille (thousand) of the salinity (which is taken as 35 in round numbers). In the accompanying table the composition of sea water salts is given in the form of such combinations, together with the permillage of each in normal seawater, and the number of short tons in a cubic mile of sea water.”
Salt
Symbol
Percentage of
Total Sales
Taken as 100
Permillage in
Grams per Liter
Of Sea Water
Tons per Cubic
Mile of Sea Water
1. Sodium chloride
NaCl
77.758
27.213
131,526,080
2. Manganese chloride
NnCl
10.878
3.807
18,399,360
3. Manganese sulfate
MnSO
4.737
1.658
8,012,480
4. Calcium sulfate
CaSO
3.600
1.260
6,089,440
5. Potassium sulfate
K SO
2.465
0.863
4,169,760
6. Calcium carbonate
CacO
0.345
0.123
They picked New Iberia, Louisiana as the ideal location. Their reasons for choosing New Iberia were:
It is located at the Gulf of Mexico.
The Labor supply is abundant.
The wages in that part of the country are lower than in most sections.
Technical reports gave the following analysis of Gulf waters:
“Although the material held in solution by the water of the Gulf of Mexico is not found in combination as salts, such as produced on evaporation, but rather in the form of ions, the basic elements and the acid radicals being separated, nevertheless it is customary and convenient to consider them as combined into the form of salts. Among these, common salt, or sodium chloride, makes up the bulk of the material, being nearly 78 percent of the total mass of salt, or over 27 mille (thousand) of the salinity (which is taken as 35 in round numbers). In the accompanying table the composition of sea water salts is given in the form of such combinations, together with the permillage of each in normal seawater, and the number of short tons in a cubic mile of sea water.”
Salt
Symbol
Percentage of
Total Sales
Taken as 100
Permillage in
Grams per Liter
Of Sea Water
Tons per Cubic
Mile of Sea Water
1. Sodium chloride
NaCl
77.758
27.213
131,526,080
2. Manganese chloride
NnCl
10.878
3.807
18,399,360
3. Manganese sulfate
MnSO
4.737
1.658
8,012,480
4. Calcium sulfate
CaSO
3.600
1.260
6,089,440
5. Potassium sulfate
K SO
2.465
0.863
4,169,760
6. Calcium carbonate
CacO
0.345
0.123