it was a large wooden cistern that held a supply of brine, which was supplied by the state. they would let brine into the kettles through a system of lot pipes. the lock pipe ran down the middle of the block, with of big ironw kettles on each side. over each kettle, there was a wooden stick it that allowed the into theflow individual kettles. when they wanted to stop the flow of brine, they would use these wooden plugs and stick it into the opening of the spigot. s wereason that the log made out of wood, or the piping system was made out of wood, was and salt waterne was very corrosive. if they were using iron pipes, eventually those pipes would rest, the rust impurities would get into the water. pipesy tended to use long throughout the manufacturing process. they used it to distribute the brine to the solar evaporating shed as well. once the brine was loaded into the kettle, a fire would start and the heat ran under the kettle down to the chimney at the end. the tall chimney created quite a bit of draft to pull that heat down underneath the kettles to aid in the process so