8 ALT. 257 



refused to convict when the penalty seemed too great for the offense. 

 The United States has never collected revenue from salt, but when 

 provision was made by congress for the government of the Northwest 

 Territory and for the sale of lands therein, it took care to reserve the 

 salt licks, apparently fearing that they might be made a means of 

 extortion to the consumers of this indispensable article of diet. One 

 section of the act of congress reads: 



That a salt spring lying upon a creek which empties into the Scioto River, 

 on the east side, together with as many contiguous sections as shall be equal 

 to one township, and every other salt spring which may be discovered, together 

 with the section of one mile square, which includes it, also four sections at the 

 center of every township, containing each one mile square, that shall be reserved 

 for the future disposal of the United States; but there shall be no reservation 

 except for salt springs, in fractional townships, where the fraction is less than 

 three fourths of a township. 



We read of bloody battles between Germanic tribes for the possession 

 of salt springs, and the inference is perfectly fair that the rumor of 

 very few has come down to us by means of the written and the printed 

 page. In the new world rival Indian tribes in like manner often con- 

 tended fiercely for the same flowing treasure. Here too we find a 

 repetition of the nomenclature of primitive Europe. There are sev- 

 eral salt rivers in the states formed out of the Northwest Territory 

 besides salt creeks, salt licks and other names, due to the presence of 

 natural salt. The number is doubtless very much larger than the list 

 given in the ordinary gazetteers, as the insignificant ones are not men- 

 tioned. 



Although there are few regions in any part of the world in which 

 there are neither saline springs nor deposits of rock-salt, it is probable 

 that the Aryan name was derived from the sea and that the first salt 

 was obtained from it by natural evaporation. In Homer tils means 

 both salt and the sea; or perhaps it would be better to say that salt is 

 named from the sea because the saline property of sea-water is its 

 most salient characteristic. The designation 6.1s is more particularly 

 applied to that part of the sea which is near the land, as also to its 

 bays and inlets, those parts with which man in the nature of the case 

 was most familiar. In the Roman territory there existed in ancient 

 times a Via Salaria, or Salt Road, which extended from the territory 

 of the Sabines to the mouth of the Tiber, along which these people 

 were permitted to transport salt for domestic use from the Mediter- 

 ranean through the Roman country. The early Italians were, there- 

 fore, also dependent on the sea for their salt. It is noteworthy that 

 Homer does not mention salt as employed in connection with sacrifi- 

 cial ceremonies. On the other hand, Virgil speaks of it as in regular 

 use among the Romans, as do also other writers. While it is always 



