246 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the condiment became quite unknown to the common people, who 

 quite lost their taste for it.* 



In Pliny's time salt was considered a valuable medicament for 

 various ailments. It was taken to neutralize the effects of opium, 

 and above all it was valued as a cure for leprosy. 



The most common artificial salt is made by evaporating sea 

 water in salt pans. It is also produced by pouring salt water upon 

 burning wood, the ashes of which are said to have almost the pun- 

 gency of the true mineral. When thus prepared the salt is black. 

 In Arabia, according to Pliny, so many salt mines were found that 

 people resorted to them instead of quarries, building whole houses 

 and even cities of this mineral. Gerrah was entirely composed 

 of it. 



One of the most remarkable salt mines in the world is at Wie- 

 liczka, near Warsaw, Poland. It has been worked since 1252, and at 

 one time furnished the principal revenue of the kingdom. A vast 

 number of people inhabit the subterranean passages of this mine, and 

 are governed by laws and magistrates of their own. Each miner 

 is allotted a little cell, where he dwells and rears his family. As 

 many as eighty horses are kept in this underground republic to 

 carry to and fro along the immense corridors which are supported 

 by pillars of salt. When the light falls down the long vistas it 

 makes the mine look like a crystal palace, of which the walls and 

 pillars are tinged with delicate green. f 



Outside of the timber belt, which begins at Monterey and extends at 

 intervals to Oregon, there is hardly a mountain on the Coast Range of Cali- 

 fornia, from San Diego, on the south, to Trinity, almost at the Oregon line, 

 says Carl Purdy, in Garden and Forest, which is not in part covered by the 

 chemise brush, or chemisal. The greater the distance from the ocean the 

 larger the percentage of mountain lands which this hardy shrub has taken 

 possession of, until many sections of the eastern part of the Coast Range 

 are almost given up to it, and from the valleys to the mountain tops it 

 holds a sway only shared by a few of the hardiest shrubs, oaks, and coni- 

 fers. Hardly a spot is too steep to allow it a foothold, hardly a soil too 

 meager to afford it sustenance. Fires sweep over and leave blackened 

 stubs, but with its unusual vitality it soon starts a new growth. In a few 

 years rocks, hills, and slopes are again masked by a close color of blue 

 green, which gives to the mountains a softness of outline peculiar to the 

 Coast Range, and very beautiful too, although the monotony of flowing 

 lines often becomes tiresome. The chemise (Adenostoma fascicularis) is of 

 the rose family, and is an evergreen with linear, heathlike leaves, a light- 

 colored, stinging bark, and brittle wood. In late spring it produces an 

 abundance of whitish flowers with green centers. 



* Bancroft. Works on Native Races. f Valmont de Bomare, tome v, p. 591. 



