13 



rive their salinity from rocks and earths containing salt 

 intermixed but not in the form of rock salt strata. The 

 more nearly saturated a salt spring is, the more certain is it 

 that the bed of salt is very near. In most cases salt springs 

 were known for ages before the rock salt beds from which 

 they originated were discovered. In England salt was 

 manufactured from the springs by the Romans, whilst the 

 first rock salt was only discovered in 1G70. In Germany 

 numerous springs were known and worked from the earliest 

 times, whilst it is only in the present century that the chief 

 beds of salt have been found by boring. At Lilneberg, in 

 Hanover, a spring of brine nearly saturated had been 

 known for ages, as also at Halle, in Saxony : both are men- 

 tioned as the best in Germany, in Vol. I. of Philosophical 

 Transactions, 1665-1666 ; yet it is only within the last few 

 years that the rock salt has been discovered at these places. 

 In almost every country we have the same report made. 

 In America brine springs were known long before the salt 

 beds were discovered. Along the Carpathian mountains, 

 from Roumania to Poland and Hungary, rock salt is used in 

 preference to white salt, indicating in the first place that 

 the beds of salt lie near, as a rule, to the surface, and that 

 brine springs were not so numerous and strong as to be 

 worth the trouble of evaporating when salt could be got so 

 easily out of mines. However, generally speaking, salt 

 springs preceded salt mines, and almost all the towns whose 

 names indicate connection with salt, such as the ' Wiches ' 

 in England : Droiiiuich, 'Naniiv ich, M.iddleivich, 'Norihwich : 

 in Germany, the various towns with Sah, Sulz, and Hall, 

 as Salzwedel, Salza, Sulz, Hall, 'Reichenhall, &c., were con- 

 nected with salt springs. The great majority of natural 

 brine springs are weak or not nearly saturated. Scarcely 

 one fully saturated brine spring flowing away naturally is 

 or has been known to exist. Those in England on the 

 average, as far as can be learnt, were stronger than most 



