novelSusiti Chapter 84 Salt Lake
Chapter 84 Salt Lake
On October 1, 1182 in the Julian calendar, Lyon returned to Jerusalem.
Lyon arrived at the Salt Sea, which later became known as the Dead Sea, before noon the following day. In Latin texts, it is written as Mare Salsum. His companion, Zahir, was a Saracen, and he used the old Persian name Bahr Lut, meaning "Lhod Sea".
The two sides use different names, but they both point to the same scene.
A ring of greyish-white limestone walls resembles a giant bowl cracked by heavenly fire, its bottom filled with a still, dark blue-green body of water. The water level is four hundred feet lower than the Mediterranean Sea, as if God had pressed the earth down with his palm, leaving behind this "navel of the world."
The Jordan River flows into the Salt Sea from its northern end, but there is no outlet. The seawater evaporates only through sunlight, so the salt content accumulates and becomes more and more concentrated, like a brine that has been simmering for thousands of years.
The shore is covered with jagged salt crystals that crunch underfoot; when the sun shines, the ground is like scattered silver, so dazzling that it's hard to open your eyes. Occasionally, a dark clump of asphalt rises from the lake bottom, its surface coated with sulfur powder and emitting a faint smell of rotten eggs.
Jacob pointed to the lake and made the sign of the cross on his chest: "Lyon, look at the abyss. According to the sacred books, beneath this salt water lies Sodom and Gomorrah, which were burned by the wrath of God. Lot's wife, because of her lingering attachment to her sinful past deeds, looked back and turned into a pillar of salt, standing here as an eternal warning to those who come after."
Zahir smiled awkwardly and said, "Muslims have another version of the story. They say that the people of the Prophet Lot did unjust things, and the angels, by the command of God, uprooted the entire city and then turned it upside down. The imams of the mosques use this story to warn Muslims not to stray from the right path."
In the distance, on the beach where salt crystals and asphalt intertwine, a pure white salt column stands out abruptly.
According to the Christian scriptures cited by Jacob, it was the incarnation of Lot's wife. However, Islamic scriptures record the remains of Lot's wife.
Lyon's gaze shifted from the symbolic salt column to the lake's surface, which shimmered with iridescent colors in the sunlight. With a little guidance, pure alkalis, nitrates, and brines, more precious than gold, could be extracted from here.
He then looked at the busy people around the lake.
There was almost no sign of life in the air of the Salt Sea. Even the eagles flying overhead would circle around it, as if afraid of being tainted by bad luck. So at this time, the Salt Sea was only frequented by pilgrims and profit-driven merchants who wanted to turn this cursed land into a treasure trove.
The Latin and Arab helpers Robert hired were shoveling salt crystals from the shallows into wicker baskets. Before going into the water, they would whisper a passage from the Lord's Prayer, praying that they would only "gain profit" and not "bring disaster."
Further away, shipbuilders and accompanying soldiers were using long poles to dredge up black asphalt, a precious material for repairing seams and making waterproof mortar.
The foreman, who was waiting respectfully to the side, presented a handful of freshly collected coarse salt. It was dark in color, mixed with mud and sand, and tasted extremely salty, with a distinct bitterness.
Lyon knew it was the smell of chlorides from impurities like magnesium and calcium. Just as he was about to squat down to pick up a twig and demonstrate drawing on the saline ground for the craftsmen, Jacob promptly handed him a roll of papyrus and some ink and brush.
Lyon exchanged a knowing glance with Accord, who was winking at him, and then drew several stepped salt ponds on papyrus that descended in sequence and were connected to each other.
"Do it according to my drawing," he said to Theodore and the craftsmen who had gathered around him. "First, we will divert the lake water into the first pool. Let the silt settle, and let the heaviest impurities settle out first."
"Then, the initially purified brine is introduced into the second pool. As the water evaporates, the plaster crystallizes first, which we can scrape off; it's great for painting the castle and fixing the siding."
"When the brine enters the third and shallowest pool, the precious salt will be extracted in large quantities. The salt obtained at this time will be far purer than before."
"Finally, the remaining brine was collected, which contained concentrated bitter salt and Epsom salt. Bitter salt was excellent fertilizer, while Epsom salt could be sold to leatherworkers or used as a hot compress for the soldiers' sprained ankles and swollen joints."
Guided by the blueprints drawn by Lyon, hundreds of workers sprang into action. The land on the edge of the Salt Sea, silent for millennia, was instantly transformed into a massive construction site.
The first projects to be started were the irrigation canals and a series of interconnected, stepped salt pans. Craftsmen utilized the terrain's elevation differences to excavate channels, channeling the dark blue-black waters of the Dead Sea into the tiered sedimentation pans.
In the days that followed, the craftsmen used locally quarried limestone and clay to build the walls of the pools and installed simple wooden gate valves at key locations to precisely control the flow of brine in each level of the salt pond.
Several days later, after the brine was introduced into the second-stage evaporation pool to continue to be baked by the scorching sun, a thick layer of white gypsum indeed settled at the bottom of the first-stage sedimentation pool.
"This stuff is perfect for plastering walls!" the old craftsmen exclaimed as they scraped the plaster.
When the brine has undergone the first two stages of sedimentation and preliminary concentration, it flows into the shallowest crystallization pool, where the water evaporates rapidly.
A few days later, salt crystals began to precipitate from the bottom of the pool. Unlike the coarse salt that was shoveled directly from the lake beach, which was dark in color and mixed with mud and sand, the new salt crystals in front of us were as white as snow and had fine particles.
The craftsmen continued their work, following Lyon's instructions not to completely dry the brine in the crystallization pool, but to promptly scoop out the remaining brine and divert it into several small brine storage pools that had been specially built next to it.
After being exposed to the sun, the brine indeed precipitated two other salts at the bottom of the pool, which were darker in color and had different crystal forms—bitter salt, later known as magnesium chloride, and Epsom salt, known as magnesium sulfate.
A week later, Theodore returned to the palace gates, with a convoy of goods still following behind him.
Theodore flung open the sealed glass jar, scooped out a handful of snow-white, crystalline salt, and walked towards Lyon: "Your Highness! Look! This salt... it's like the finest stuff bought from Alexandria! No, it's even whiter and purer!"
Lyon looked at the refined salt in front of him with satisfaction, pondered for a moment, and said to Theodore, "From now on, the refined salt produced from the Salt Sea will be called 'Snow of Sodom,' which is the crystal left behind after the Holy Fire purified the Sin City, or both. Anyway, you can never have too many gimmicks."
"The refined salt is first supplied to the royal palace, then to the nobles of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at an internal price slightly lower than the average market price in Venice and Constantinople, and finally sold to Constantinople and Venice..." Lyon asked Theodore, "By the way, have the costs and output of the saltworks been calculated?"
Theodore pulled a parchment from his robes, its edges still stained with salt, and said smugly, "Your Highness, I have completed the verification of the first turnover in the Salt Sea. This batch of brine was poured into the pool at 2200 pounds, yielding 1830 pounds of refined salt, 210 pounds of gypsum as a byproduct, 90 pounds of bitter salt, and 70 pounds of Epsom salt. All have been bagged and sealed as you instructed. The total cost was four dinars."
"Although my business experience is far less than that of Lord Robert, I can roughly deduce that 1830 pounds of refined salt of this quality could yield a profit of 70 gold dinars in Venice and Constantinople. If production continues year-round, and the workers become more skilled, I estimate a conservative estimate of 400000 pounds could be produced, with an annual net profit of 25000 dinars!"
Theodore's voice rose with excitement as he said this:
"Your Highness, this is equivalent to one-fifth of the kingdom's total annual revenue, enough to pay the annual salaries of five hundred crossbowmen!"