I have never beard of an accident in these places, although hundreds of persons are employed annually in collecting salt from the bottom.
These natural reservoirs are of great extent, some of them being many miles in circumference.

Those most productive are about four miles round, and yield a supply in August, during the height of the dry season.
Salt in Ceylon is a government monopoly; and it has hitherto been the narrow policy of the government to keep up an immense price upon this necessary of life, when the resources of the country could produce any amount required for the island consumption.
These are now all but neglected, and the government simply gathers the salt as the wild pig feeds upon the fruit which falls from the tree in its season.
The government price of salt is now about three shillings per bushel.
This is very impure, being mixed with much dirt and sand.

The revenue obtained by the salt monopoly is about forty thousand pounds per annum, two-thirds of which is an unfair burden upon the population, as the price, according to the supply obtainable, should never exceed one shilling per bushel.
Let us consider the capabilities of the locality from which it is collected.
The lakes are some five or six in number, situated within half a mile of the sea, separated only by a high bank of drift sand, covered for the most part with the low jungle which clothes the surrounding country.

Flat plains of a sandy nature form the margins of the lakes.
The little town of Hambantotte, with a good harbor for small craft, is about twenty miles distant, to which there is a good cart road.
The water of these lakes is a perfect brine.

In the dry season the evaporation, of course, increases the strength until the water can no longer retain the amount of salt in solution it therefore precipitates and crystalizes at the bottom in various degrees of thickness, according to the strength of the brine.
Thus, as the water recedes from the banks by evaporation and the lake decreases in size, it leaves a beach, not of shingles, but of pure salt in crystallized cubes, to the depth of several inches, and sometimes to half a foot or more.