BORAX IN AMERICA. 351 



tionally dry season, on the contrary, it shows sometimes no water, the 

 muddy bottom being covered with saline incrustations. When it has 

 a length of three fourths of a mile, with a depth of four feet, being 

 perhaps its average condition, the water holds in solution 18*75 grains 

 of solid matter to the ounce '039 of its own weight. This consists 

 of salts of soda, in the following proportions : Sodium carbonate, *618; 

 sodium chloride, '204; sodium biborate, '178. 



But this alkaline water, exceedingly rich as it is in borax, consti- 

 tutes only a trifling part of the commercial value of the lake. In fact, 

 it has never been turned to account at all in the manufacture of borax, 

 though such use of it is entirely practicable, as the statements to be 

 presently made in relation to Hachinhama will show. The muddy 

 bottom of the lake was found, immediately on its discovery in 1856, to 

 contain borax in crystals, in quantities most astonishing. 



These crystals, being tested by various workers in iron and steel, 

 were pronounced equal to the very best of refined borax. They are, 

 in fact, pure biborate of soda, without any other impurities than the 

 mud mechanically entangled with them in their process of crystal- 

 lization. They correspond to the native borax of other localities, 

 designated as ti?ical, but yet are decidedly distinct from it. In fact, 

 no such crystals as those of Borax Lake have ever been found in any 

 other locality, and there are several points in connection with their 

 mode of formation, and even their very existence, which are by no 

 means easy of comprehension, as we shall see. 



Although the discovery was made, as already stated, in 1856, no 

 practical development of the lake was begun until 1864. From this 

 time it was pressed vigorously until 1868, when it ceased, not from 

 failure of the supply, but simply from mismanagement of the work. 

 The crystals were certainly less abundant at the last than in the earlier 

 workings, but the lake still held and doubtless holds now an amount 

 running to many millions of pounds, if it be not in truth practically 

 inexhaustible. 



Their abundunce was such, and the yield was so great, that within 

 the period specified the lake had revolutionized the borax-trade of the 

 United States ; in fact, it had accomplished that work before the close 

 of the year 1864. The annual importations since 1855, the earliest 

 date at which the congressional reports enable us to trace them, had 

 varied from $143,218 to $217,944. In 1864 they were suddenly re- 

 duced to $8,984, a result due entirely to the working of Borax 

 Lake. 



A statement of the manner in which the crude crvstals were re- 

 moved and utilized will bring to our notice the strange peculiarities of 

 their nature, origin, and mode of crystallization. 



The mud which constitutes the bottom of the lake is a smooth, 

 even, plastic clay, of unknown depth. It has been bored through 

 thirty feet without showing change in its structure. The upper por- 



