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
California State Mining and Mineral Museum tunnel is a trip back through time, focusing on the lives of miners working in California's hard rock mines during the later part of the Gold Rush. It allows visitors to experience first-hand what it felt like to spend the day working inside a dark, cool and damp underground chamber, excavated from solid rock and shored up with timbers. A visit to the California State Mining and Mineral Museum offers the visitor the chance to explore the wealth of the Mother Lode, view minerals and gems from around the world, and to experience a little bit of California's mining history