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A strong solution of salt is pumped up through these papers into a wooden reservoir from which it
is let run occasionally into immense flat iron pans. Here the superfluous water is
boiled away till the salt chrystalizes. The water is made to boil by a fire made 10 feet
deep from the bottom of the kettle, the flame seldom comes up to it, but with the greatest part
of the heat passes away through a chimney behind. By this bad management so much fire
is required that the Proprietors instead of an immense profit, scarcely find their amount in carrying
on the works. In all these saltworks together they could & have made as far as 5 million pounds in
a year, but from the difficulty of procuring wood they scarcely make half that. They are obliged
to sell the salt to the crown who pays them in the spot about 4d 1/2 English for 100 weight.
I dare not call you to account for not writing to me oftener only let me tell you that the date of the last letter I
have received from England is July 24th. Do as you would be done by, not as you are done by.
It is now Jany 1st 1782 OS. and I believe my birthday according to your heretical way of counting. If you have not forgot me
to day at Q.S.P and have any feeling in you, you will begin a letter to me this very evening. I am on my way to Tabolsk.
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The worst of this Expedition is that at my return from it Gen: Lambe the Governor was set off to
make a visit to the principal town within this Government to commence the new mode of Jurisdiction
Thus I was deprived of by far the best source of information I could have had with respect to the laws & state of the country.
If all Governors were like him this would be the most enviable of all countries. I regretted my not being
able to profit by his company the more as I was thus prevented completing a little account of the laws which I had
fully intended & I believe indeed promised to send you now. However I shall see him again I hope on my return
to and besides shall find now some other means of informing myself fully. I was kept a long time at Perme
partly in waiting for an officer who accompanies me the rest of my journey, and for a week all the world
was ill of a cold & sore throat. I was however fully employed in informing myself of the method of raising
for the army which takes place now pretty regularly once a year; and in putting to rights some papers
and settling with my Interpreter when as well as my servant I have discharged & packed off to Petersbourg.
I have now an Officer & two Soldiers, one a corporal the other a Grenadier. With these I am obliged to speak Russian
and as the Officer is exceedingly intelligent I am much happier with this new arrangement. I send you a translation
made by my Interpreter of the order which this Officer received to go with me. I have sent for you to Petersbourg from whence
the first opportunity it will be forwarded to England, a small packet containing a drawing of my amphibious Carriage a
copy of which the Empress has seen I believe before this time: also a few specimens of some of the mineral production of this
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1782
Jan: S.B. Catherineburg
to
2 J.B. Linc. Inn
{12n}
Amphibious Carriage
Cave Strogonoff
Jeremy Bentham Esq.r
Lincoln's Inn
London
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Identifier: | JB/539/269/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 539.
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1782-01-02 |
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539 |
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269 |
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002 |
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Correspondence |
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Samuel Bentham |
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