Open-pan salt making from lead using wood as a fuel. In Britain they established towns for salt production at Droitwich in Worcestershire, and Nantwich, Middlewich and Northwich in Cheshire. In the early Middle Ages these developed into the 'wich' towns of Cheshire. Small 'wich' houses containing several lead pans to evapourate the brine into salt, clustered around brine springs within each of the towns. The open-pan process continued largely unchanged throughout the medieval period. A 17th-century German wood-cut by Georgius Agricola shows the process in detail. Excavated evidence has uncovered wooden rakes to draw salt crystals to the side of the pan, and
Mining in the Republic of the Congo influx of international companies seeking to tap into the vast mineral wealth. As of 2012: During the colonial period, the Republic of the Congo saw small-scale mechanized mining activities. During the 1960s French exploration companies identified vast evaporative zones containing sylvinite and carnallite mineralisation covering the Congo Basin. In 1959 COMILOG commenced manganese extraction operations near the town of Moanda in Gabon, just across the Congolese border. To be able to export the manganese COMILOG built a 285 km railway line from the Congo town of Mbinda south to where it join the Congo-Ocean railway. Ultimately trains go on to