bout once each month the salt is gathered. The women of the family
work naked in the stream-filled house, washing the crust of salt from
the stones into a large wooden trough, called "ko-long'-ko." Each
stone is thoroughly washed and then replaced in the pavement. The
saturated brine is preserved in a gourd until sufficient is gathered
for evaporation.

FIGURE 7

Ground plan of Mayinit salt house.

Two or more families frequently join in evaporating their salt. The
brine is boiled in the large, shallow iron boilers, and from half a
day to a day is necessary to effect the evaporation. Evaporation is
discontinued when the salt is reduced to a thick paste.

The evaporated salt is spread in a half-inch layer on a piece of banana
leaf cut about 5 inches square. The leaf of paste is supported by two
sticks on, but free from, a piece of curved broken pottery which is
the baking pan. The salt thus prepared for baking is set near a fire
in the dwelling where it is baked thirty or forty minutes. It is then
ready for use at home or for commerce, and is preserved in the square,
flat cakes called "luk'-sa."

Analyses have been made of Mayinit salt as prepared by the crude
method of the Igorot. The showing is excellent when the processes
are considered, the finished salt having 86.02 per cent of sodium
chloride as against 90.68 per cent for Michigan common salt and 95.35
for Onondaga common salt.

Table of salt composition

Constituent elements
Mayinit salt[31]
Common fine --

Saturated brine
Evaporated salt
Baked salt
Michigan salt[32]
Onondaga salt.

PER CENT
PER CENT
PER CENT
PER CENT
PER CENT

Calcium sulphate
0.73
1.50
0.46
0.805
1.355

Sodium sulphate
.92
6.28
10.03
--
--

Sodium chloride
7.95
72.19
86.02
90.682
95.353

Insoluble matter
2.14
.16
.45
--
--

Water
88.03
19.19
1.78
6.752
3.000

Undetermined
.23
.68
.1.26
--
--

Calcium chloride
--
--
--
.974
.155

Magnesium chloride
--
--
--
.781
.136

Total
100
100
100
99.994
99.999

One house produces from six to thirty cakes of salt at each baking. A
cake is valued at an equivalent of 5 cents, thus making an average
salt house, producing, say, fifteen cakes per month, worth 9 pesos
per year. Salt houses are seldom sold, but when they are they claim
they sell for only 3 or 4 pesos.

Sugar

In October and November the Bontoc Igorot make sugar from cane. The
stalks are gath