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TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 101 
resumé as to the origin of common salt and other saline bodies, adverting only to the 
more salient points. 
I. Bay-salt, deposited entirely by solar evaporation from sea-water, particularly in 
warm latitudes; in Greenland, however, the heat of the few summer days is so great 
as to evaporate the water left by the tide among the rocks, and to reduce it to a fine 
salt. There is an important commercial fact connected with bay-salt, inasmuch as 
it has been found, particularly at Buenos Ayres, to be much better suited to the salt- 
ing of meat (which appears to be owing to its containing the deliquescent chlorides) 
than the salt procured from the salt-lakes and plains of Patagonia, the latter being 
nearly a pure chloride of sodium; thus the following conclusions may be arrived at, 
that the superficial saline deposits in Patagonia and other inland plains in various 
parts of the world are not behoiden to the ovean for such deposits. 
II. Bay-salt, as procured from sea-water by allowing it to run into shallow reser- 
voirs on the surface of the ground, where it is partially evaporated by the sun’s heat, 
and then by artificial means; a purer chloride of sodium is thus obtained, in conse- 
quence of the separation of the bittern from it. 
III. Another and a harder species of bay-salt is found near the level of the ocean, 
a few feet above the sea, particularly on the coast of Peru; here it has been but 
recently uplifted above the sea. 
IV. Salt is produced in Russia by the freezing of sea-water, and then evaporating 
the brine. One effect of the low temperature is to decompose a portion of the salt, 
and convert the sulphate of magnesia of the brine into sulphate of soda and chlo- 
ride of magnesium. 
The formation of sulphate of soda in this way may be the principal cause of its 
existence in Peru and other places, that is to say, the saline lakes in the Andean 
and other mountainous regions, would in winter be reduced to a low temperature, 
when the chemical change would be produced; as summer approached, the snows 
above the lakes would melt, and rains would run into the lakes; these in time would 
overflow, causing streams; some of these waters would find their way into rivers and 
then into the ocean, whilst others would run into hollows, low lands and plains; and 
in such arid countries as Peru, Mexico, Patagonia, parts of Asia and Africa, and 
perhaps in Australia, would yield layers of saline materials, the principal one being 
common salt. In Saxony, Sardinia, and some other localities, water from brine- 
springs is evaporated by passing over and through ‘‘ Thorn Houses.” 
V. Salt, having risen with the vapour of sea-water or with the spray of the ocean; 
alee with the vapour arising from saline inland lakes, as in Asiatic Russia in par- 
ticular. 
V1. Rock or Fossil Salt is found constituting portions of mountain ranges; in the 
Carpathians in Europe; in the Sulemien mountains in Asia; also in Thibet, here in 
company with borax and muriate of ammonia; and doubtless the many brine-springs 
in the interior of China have their origin from masses of rock salt. As so much salt 
is found in the arid parts of Africa, it is reasonable to conclude that the mountains 
also contain it. We know that in the mountains of Morocco there is rock salt. To 
the east of this section much carbonate of soda (Trona) is found. 
The inland waters of Australia are brackish, and its plains covered with saline 
materials; hence we may suppose that in the interior of that large mass of land 
there may be rock salt. 
In North and South America there is abundance of rock salt. In the north, 
among other ranges affording it, is the Wha-sacht, which is above the Great Sali 
Lake of Utah or of the Mormons; in South America, from the Andean region to the 
coast, on either side it is found, and in company with many other curious saline bodies. 
From the small per-centage of saline matter in sea-water, not 4 per cent., we can 
hardly look to the ocean as the origin of so much pure or almost pure chloride of 
sodium existing in mountain regions, but rather to sources of a volcanic character 
at different epochs; sub-marine as well as sub-aérial volcanos yielding it. During vol- 
canic eruptions, with vast quantities of sulphur and other volatile bodies, the vapour 
of muriatic acid escapes, and salt has been found sublimed about craters as well as 
muriate of ammonia. Sea-water may find its way into the igneous interior of the 
earth; however, the formation of salt in all probability is mainly due to the direct 
union of chlorine and sodium; salt thus formed from its elements in the bowels of the 
