The bottom of the lake is equally coated with this thick deposit.
These lakes are protected by watchers, who live upon the margin throughout the year.

Were it not for this precaution, immense quantities of salt would be stolen.

In the month of August the weather is generally most favorable for the collection, at which time the assistant agent for the district usually gives a few days' superintendence.
The salt upon the shore being first collected, the natives wade into the lake and gather the deposit from the bottom, which they bring to the shore in baskets; it is then made up into vast piles, which are subsequently thatched over with cajans (the plaited leaf of the cocoanut).

In this state it remains until an opportunity offers for carting it to the government salt stores.
This must strike the reader as being a rude method of collecting what Nature so liberally produces.

The waste is necessarily enormous, as the natives cannot gather the salt at a greater depth than three feet; hence the greater proportion of the annual produce of the lake remains ungathered.