44 on borax. Sept. 43 
paul call the borax soaga, the same name as the Hin-~ 
doos give it. Near the two villages in the valley 
there is a large pond, with several small ones, where-~ 
in after rain the wate: remains. In those very 
ponds after the water has remained for a certain 
time, the borax is to be found tormed. The people 
then enter into those ponds, and with their feet 
try to discover in what part the borax is to be met 
with, because wherever they find the bottom very 
smooth as if it was paved, there the borax is fors 
med, and directly dig it out in pieces without much 
force or apparatus. The deeper the water, the 
thicker is the borax found, and always found in 
its upper part covered with an inch or two of mud. 
Thus is the borax naturally formed, and not prepar- 
ed, as all along it has been thought in Europe. The 
water in which the borax is formed is of sucha poiso- 
nous nature as to cause death in a very fhort time 
to any animal that fhould drink the smallest quan- 
tity of it, bringing first a great turgescence on the 
abdomen. The ground in which the borax is produ- 
ced is of a whitith colour. 
Four miles from the borax ponds in the same vals 
ley there are the salt mines, whereby all the inhabi- 
tants of that remote mountainous part of the world 
are supplied. The natives of the two villages can 
dig out the borax without paying any sort of con 
tributidn: but the strangers are obliged to pay a 
certain sum to the person that governs there, accords 
ing to the convention made, and the people of Mars 
mé pay to a Lama called Pema Tupkan to whom the 
lorax mines belong. Ten days more to the north 
