Salary is another word that has its roots in salt. It harkens back to Ancient Rome, when soldiers got paid in salt.
People say this all the time, and its patently wrong - salt was not a rare resource in italy, the sea is everywhere.
Latin salārium, originally money allowed to Roman soldiers for the purchase of salt, hence, their pay
If I recall correctly, the book from the article mentions that the sea is an inefficient way to gather salt. The salinity is just much lower than what you can find in underground brine springs. It also goes into how Italian city-states went to war over control of saltworks, and how it hugely increased the wealth of whoever controlled it. So although it may not have been rare, I don't think it's accurate to paint it as an abundant resource, either.
Interesting about the misinformation around the etymology of "salary." Thanks for pointing out. Found an article [1] that goes into more depth about how there's no evidence for the explanation.
[1]: http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.ht...
You get 4.5 ounces of salt from a gallon of water and it takes a fairly long time or a lot of fuel for 1 gallon of water to evaporate.