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These pits are of two kinds, "open" and "closed". Men, in the closed pits, actually descend and, wading, or on rafts, negotiate the sludge itself, filling their vessels and later, eventually, pouring their contents into the lift sacks, on hooks, worked by windlasses from the surface. The "harvesting" vessel, not the retaining vessel, used is rather like a perforated cone with a handle, to which is attached a rope. It is dragged through the sludge and lifted, the free water running from the vessel, leaving within the sludge of salt, thence to be poured into the retaining vessels, huge, wooden tubs. The retaining vessels are then emptied later into the lift sacks, a ring on which fits over the rope hooks. In places, the "open pits," the brine pits are exposed on the surface, where they are fed by springs from the underground rivers, which prevents their desiccation by evaporation, which would otherwise occur almost immediately in the Tahari temperatures. Men do not last long in the open pits. - (Tribesmen of Gor, Chapter )