164 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



it appears large from the fact that it 

 is on a large fence post and the branch 

 of a tree. When he considers the wet 

 condition of those bees he can under- 

 stand the enormity of the swarm in a 

 normal state. He also says there is 

 nothing abnormal about the swarm be- 

 cause they have the parent colony 

 weak in bees, not so in this case for 

 there were plenty left for an eight 

 frame colony. In regard to the ability 

 of a queen in a good season under fav- 

 orable conditions, I am not able to say 

 what one can do. 



Later I will give you a better state- 

 ment in regard to the management of 

 those bees to get such a large swarm 

 from one queen. 



Yours respectfully, 



James W. Davidson. 



What Causes "Salt Water?" 

 Most rivers contain a little salt 

 which they get from the earth through 

 which the water soaks before it 

 trickles into the river. If the lake into 

 which a stream runs has an outlet the 

 lake is not much more salt than the 

 water that runs into it. But if the 

 lake has no outlet either at or below 

 the surface, the water disappears by 

 evaporation. In this case the salt is 

 left when the water passes off in 

 vapor, and the lake becomes more and 

 more salt as time goes on. In a simi- 

 lar way, the rivers of the world carry 

 salt into the ocean, and this has been 

 going on for so long that the ocean 

 has become "salty." The salt has 

 been left in it while the water has been 

 continually evaporating, going back 

 through the air to the land as rain 

 and thence carrying more salt to the 

 sea. The sea probably extracts a little 

 salt from the rocks of its bed. Some 

 lakes, such as the Dead Sea and the 

 Great Salt Lake, are much more salt 

 than the ocean. — H. L. \Y. 



The foregoing from a college profes- 

 sor was submitted to the Department 

 of Geology of various universities and 

 met with approval. Professors whose 

 names are given sent the following 

 which practically expresses the same 

 thing in a little different form. We 

 are publishing this matter explicitly 

 and authoritatively because the editor 

 was appealed to for a decision of the 

 much debated question. Strange to 

 say the persona] authoritative and 



unanimous statements of the profes- 

 sors of nearly all the leading universi- 

 ties do not agree with some of the en- 

 cyclopedias that teach that the ocean 

 was originally salt. 



Professor F. Bascom of the Depart- 

 ment of Geology of Bryn Mawr Col- 

 lege writes as follows : 



"It might be further stated that not 

 absolutely all of the salt in the ocean 

 has been brought to it by rivers ; 

 those who hold to a primitive hot 

 ocean conceive of it as highly charged 

 with salts (among them sodium- 

 chloride) ; even with the conception of 

 a primitive cold fresh-water ocean, 

 ocean water will have a chemical ac- 

 tion on rock formations and, by de- 

 composition and solution, will form 

 salt. Thus the amount of salt now in 

 the ocean, including also the salt that 

 has been precipitated from the ocean, 

 is not a measure of the discharge of 

 salt to the ocean by the rivers. 



"Salt lakes are of two classes: those, 

 like the Great Salt Lake, which have 

 descended from a fresh-water ancestor 

 and have become salt by concentration 

 owing to an excess of evaporation over 

 inflow (owing to increasing aridity of 

 climate), and those, like the Caspian 

 Sea (lake), which originate from the 

 isolation of a portion of the sea and 

 are salt from the outset." 



Professor J. F. Kemp of the Depart- 

 ment of Geology of Columbia Univer- 

 sity thus puts it : 



"Scientific people generally believe 

 the ocean to be salt because for a very 

 long period of time the rivers have 

 been conveying to it various salts in 

 solution. The ocean waters are con- 

 stantly evaporated by the sun's heat 

 and form the clouds and supply the 

 rain. No dissolved matter, however, 

 passes into the air with the vapor so 

 that it constantly increases in the 

 waters left behind. In the end the 

 ocean has become salty to the taste. 

 The lake waters and the river waters 

 being fed by the rains are almost al- 

 ways fresh. If, however, your corre- 

 spondent could sometime have a swim 

 in the Great Salt Lake in Utah he or 

 she would find that it is much more 

 salty than the ocean. Since it is a 

 confined body of water with vigorous 

 evaporation it has become very salty. 

 A swimmer floats high out of the 

 water, and this he cannot do in the 

 ocean." 



