Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 2.djvu/128

trading visitors from neighbouring states were encouraged by Babylonian women' to leave their gains behind them," conceived the idea of official monopolies of salt and iron, based upon an average annual minimum consumption per individual of thirty pounds of salt, and upon the. indispensability of ploughshares, axes, pans, knives, and needles.” This statesman's estimate of average consumption of salt per head is not borne out by modern calculations, which put the figure at about eight pounds instead of thirty, but his financial acumen is attested by the fact that the monopoly has been maintained ever since his time now twenty-five centuries ago. The Empire is divided for purposes of salt administra- tion into seven main circuits,^[1] each of which has its own source of production and is strictly de-limited, the salt in one circuit not being allowed to be sold or transported into another. In dis- tricts along the coast the method of production is from sea-water by evaporation and boiling, but in Szchuan and Shansi the salt is obtained from brine found in wells and marshes. In Szchuan alone there are about eight thousand of these artesian wells in existence, only though some five thousand of them are worked. The industry was organised in 1132 A. D., and from the wells, which are very deep, not only brine is obtained, but also unlimited quantities of hydrogen gas, which serves as fuel for treating the salt and is