B46 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



hou-es in which it is dried, contain much saltpetre- 

 earth as well. But in the warehouses it is not the 

 upper layers of rotted and trodden leaves which yield 

 the most, but the earth lying somewhat deeper, and 

 this often without any ash-lye. Regarding the origin 

 of the natural saltpetre in the fore-mentioned mountain 

 parts, or how nature goes about to produce it, I will 

 not here form an opinion. The supposition that the 

 lixivial salt of plants can only be brought out by re- 

 ducing them to ashes has done much to sustain the 

 doubt as to the existence of a natural saltpetre. But 

 since it is more and more established by recent obser- 

 vations that nature without the aid of art can produce 

 a lixivial salt from plants,* and that this lies in part 

 already present in them f as well as in animal sub- 

 stances, there should be no longer any reason for as- 

 tonishment at the production of this pure saltpetre in 

 the mountains of America ; and the less so because it 

 can now and again be had from the aphronatron of old 

 buildings, old mortar, and old vaults. The observa- 

 tions of all chymists so far agree, that saltpetre is 

 hardly to be anywhere found except in earths or places 

 where there have been present rotted, (indeed en- 

 tirely rotted), plants or organic materials. Whoever 

 therefore has any knowledge of the wild mountains 

 and forests of America where for unnumbered years 

 mouldering trees and plants have lain heaped up un- 

 touched and undisturbed, and further, whoever con- 

 siders how in those wildernesses animals, serpents, 

 and insects live and die yearly in untold numbers, and 



* Crell's Neuest. Entdeck. &c XL, 279. 

 t Ibid. XL, 149. 



