The Salt Library

34 free, public-domain books and reports about salt, from Herodotus to 1919, each linked to a copy you can read online today.

34 worksUpdated November 8, 2026

These are the original sources behind many of the facts on this site. Students can cite them directly; the Salt Almanac pages that draw on them link back here.

Ancient and classical

• Natural History, Book 31Pliny the Elder · Bostock & Riley translation, 1855–57The ancient world's salt encyclopedia: sea, lake and rock salt, fish sauce, salt remedies, and the passage behind the “salary” story (chapters 39–45).
• Histories, Book 4Herodotus · Godley translation, 1920Salt hills and houses of salt blocks along a Saharan caravan route (4.181–185).
• IliadHomer · Samuel Butler translation, 1898Achilles sprinkles “divine salt” on roasting meat (Book 9).
• Table-Talk (in Plutarch's Morals, vol. 3)Plutarch · Goodwin edition, 1874Why Homer called salt divine, and salt at the shared table (Book 5, question 10).
• King James VersionThe Bible · 1611The covenant of salt (Numbers 18:19), salt with every offering (Leviticus 2:13), Lot's wife, and “the salt of the earth.”
• Variae, Book 12, letter 24Cassiodorus · Hodgkin translation, 1886The first written description of Venice: a lagoon people who live by making salt.
• Cookery and Dining in Imperial RomeApicius · Vehling translation, 1936Roman fish sauce, spiced salts and salted foods.

Travel and exploration

• The Book of Ser Marco Polo, vol. 2Marco Polo · Yule & Cordier, 1903Salt cakes stamped with the Great Khan's mark and spent as money (Book 2, chapter 47).
• Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354Ibn Battuta · Gibb translation, 1929Taghaza, the Saharan town built of salt blocks, and salt used as money in Mali.
• The History and Description of AfricaLeo Africanus · Pory translation, Hakluyt Society, 1896The Taghaza salt mines and the salt trade with Timbuktu around 1500.
• Travels in the Interior Districts of AfricaMungo Park · 1799Salt as “the greatest of all luxuries” in the West African interior.
• Travels through Central Africa to TimbuctooRené Caillié · 1830Timbuktu's salt trade and a Saharan caravan crossing.
• Travels and Discoveries in North and Central AfricaHeinrich Barth · 1857–58; one-volume ed. 1890Timbuktu and the Taoudenni salt trade in the 1850s.
• Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial RegionsAlexander von Humboldt · Ross translation, Bohn editionSouth American salt works around 1800.
• Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark ExpeditionLewis & Clark · Thwaites edition, 1904Entries from the 1805–06 salt camp in Oregon.

Salt making, mining and industry

• De Re MetallicaGeorgius Agricola · Hoover translation, 1912 (first published 1556)Book 12: making salt from seawater and brine, with famous woodcuts of salt pans and boiling houses.
• Tiangong KaiwuSong Yingxing · Chinese original, 1637Chinese sea-salt pans and deep brine wells.
• The Art of Making Common SaltWilliam Brownrigg · 1748An 18th-century manual on sea, brine and rock salt.
• Salt in CheshireAlbert F. Calvert · 1915The fullest history of Britain's “wich” salt towns, brine pumping and subsidence.
• Salt and the Salt IndustryAlbert F. Calvert · Pitman, 1919A short overview: chemistry, early salt making, Cheshire, modern methods and the salt market.
• Salt Resources of the United StatesW.C. Phalen · USGS Bulletin 669, 1919State-by-state American salt deposits, springs and works.

Folklore, customs and superstition

• The Covenant of SaltH. Clay Trumbull · 1899A whole book on salt as a sacred bond, from biblical covenants to “eating someone's salt.”
• “The Symbolic Significance of Salt”, in Essays in Applied Psycho-AnalysisErnest Jones · 1912 essay; 1923 bookA large survey of salt customs: spilled salt, salt at weddings and funerals, salt against witches.
• The Golden BoughJames George Frazer · Abridged edition, 1922Salt taboos and fasting from salt in rituals around the world.
• Observations on Popular AntiquitiesJohn Brand · Ellis edition, 1813British customs and omens, including spilled salt and salt at deathbeds.
• Pseudodoxia Epidemica (“Vulgar Errors”)Sir Thomas Browne · 1646; Works, vol. 2A 17th-century doctor tests popular beliefs, including the falling of salt as an ill omen.
• English Fairy TalesJoseph Jacobs · 1890“Cap o' Rushes”: the daughter who loves her father as fresh meat loves salt.
• Popular Tales from the NorseG.W. Dasent · 1859; 1903 edition“Why the Sea Is Salt”: the magic mill that never stops grinding.

Food, preserving and household

• Cottage EconomyWilliam Cobbett · 1820sHow English cottagers dry-salted a whole pig and kept the bacon for years.
• The Book of Household ManagementIsabella Beeton · Victorian editionsSalting beef, curing salmon and tongues, and why saltpetre keeps cured meat red.
• The Boston Cooking-School Cook BookFannie Merritt Farmer · 1896Twelve ways of preserving food, “corning” in brine, and the ice-and-salt ratio for ice cream.

Reference works

• “Salt”Encyclopædia Britannica · 11th edition, 1911A compact 1911 summary of salt geology, production and trade.
• Encyclopédie: plates on salt marshes (Salines)Diderot & d'Alembert · 1760s–1770sEngraved plates of French salt marshes and evaporation pans.
• Das Salz: eine kulturhistorische StudieVictor Hehn · 1873 (1901 edition)A German cultural history of salt in language, religion, trade and daily life.