I CAN sympathize to a great extent with your correspondent George P. Merrill on the question of salt statistics. For a number of years I have been accumulating information on the whole subject of salt, and have found the greatest difficulty in obtaining much of a trustworthy character. The most extensive salt literature is in Germany: even there the statistical part of the subject is not dealt with so extensively as the geological, geographical, chemical, and manufacturing. Perhaps the most complete salt literature is that of India, which is issued yearly by the Government; but it deals almost exclusively with Indian salt.