| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.5 | The History Cooperative

Madeleine Zelin. The Merchants of Zigong: Industrial Entrepreneurship in Early Modern China. (Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.) New York: Columbia University Press. 2005. Pp. xxiv, 406. $45.00.
Deep in inland China is Zigong county, well known among China historians for two reasons: the historic salt wells, and the abundant records in the county archives. Madeleine Zelin has successfully brought the two together in this volume.	1
The merchants of Zigong mined the salt wells. The technology involved drilling deep into the ground, to as much as 3,000 feet, pumping out brine, and boiling the brine to produce salt. It would seem that until the 1890s, the brine that was pumped out had been naturally formed. From the 1890s, a new technology arose whereby hot water might be poured into the well to dissolve rock salt. The need to boil enough water to dissolve the salt, and then to extract the salt from the brine, meant that substantial amounts of fuel were consumed. In some places, again from the 1890s, a major source of such fuel was natural gas. While all this activity went on, the steam engine had not yet reached the Chinese interior. Pipes were still made of bamboo, machines were turned by men and mules, and the drill bit was a heavy piece of iron that smashed the ground rock upon impact.	. . .

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