640 Salt of the Motmtaht of Gem, 



Art. VI. Some Account of the Salt of the Mountain of Gem, at 

 Cardona, m Catalonia, Spain; with some Facts indicative of the 

 little Esteem entertained by Spaniards for Naturalists, By W. 

 Perceval Hunter, Esq. 



As no description of that curious production of nature the 

 mountain of Gern salt, at Cardona, in Catalonia, has ever 

 appeared in any English work, to the best of my knowledge ; 

 and as, too, the place will not, probably, be visited again for 

 years, owing to the bloody civil war raging in its environs ; 

 the following notes, taken down on the spot, however im- 

 perfect and faulty, may not, perhaps, be altogether devoid of 

 interest. 



This hill, or mountain as it is generally called, is situated 

 near the foot of the Pyrenees, about sixty miles from Barce- 

 lona; and is, according to the measurement of Bowles (Intro- 

 duccion a la Historia Natural de Espana, p. 249.), from 400 ft. 

 to 500 ft. in height, and one Spanish league, or nearly four 

 English miles, in circumference. The depth is unknown, as 

 well as the nature of the rocks on which it rests, but the form- 

 ation of the surrounding country is red sandstone and red 

 mark The whole hill is of the purest solid salt, with the 

 exception of a few mounds of earth scattered about the base 

 and sides, on which I collected from twenty to thirty species 

 of plants ; but, from my utter ignorance of botany, I could 

 not write down their names, and as I was unable to procure 

 any thing to dry them with, in the wretched dirty little town 

 of Cardona, they withered up, and I threw them away as use- 

 less, the next day, on my road to Cervera. The prevailing 

 colour of the salt, from the foot to the summit of the hill, is 

 of an icy-coloured white ; in some places, however, is seen a 

 variety of snowy white, as well as patches of red, green, black, 

 and blue, which, decked out, as they appear to be, in all the 

 colours of the rainbow, fluted at the sides, and ending in peaks, 

 present, when the sun shines, one of the most beautiful sights 

 imaginable. 



All these varieties, when broken with a hammer, and ground 

 down into powder, become of the same colour, and have the 

 same delicious flavour as the white ; next to which the red or 

 rose-coloured is the most common : it is cut up into slabs and 

 used as a most efficacious remedy against rheumatism, cramps, 

 and other pains in the body and limbs. When I visited these 

 saltworks last November, the workmen were busily employed 

 in cutting these slabs {ladrillos, as they call them ; 1 ft. long, 

 4 in. wide, and | in. thick), of which 60,000 had already been 

 sent to Seville as a remedy against the cholera morbus. They 



