NOME XX. SALINE ROCKS. 145 



229; and another in the province of Astrachan, 

 3 Buff. Min. 8vo. p. 371 : the salt in this, how- 

 ever, contains a mixture of foreign ingredients, 

 the nature of which has not been accurately de- 

 termined. The salt of the mountain Jibbel 

 Hadiffa is of a purplish colour, and bitter; but 

 whether the bitterness proceeds from glauber, or 

 muriated lime, or magnesia, or some two of 

 them, is not known ; but that it proceeds from 

 one or other of them is certain, as this bitterness 

 is easily mashed out. In the province of Yak- 

 outz, in Siberia, near the river Kaptindei, there 

 is a mountain of salt 180 feet high, and 120 in 

 length; but at two-thirds of its height it is co- 

 vered with a stratum of red clay, which reaches 

 to its summit. 1 Gmelin Voy. 34-2, cited by 

 Macquart, 82. 



" Patrin suspects that many granitic moun- 

 tains contain salt ; which, he thinks, has been 

 the cause of destruction of many of them, and 

 at this day promotes the decomposition of many 

 that still exist ; hence he derives the saliniferous, 

 sandy plains of Siberia, 4 Nev. Nord. Betr, 167, 

 174: but it more commonly, at least, proceeds 

 from salt springs beneath the sand. See 1 Her- 

 man liber die Uralisch Erze Gebirge, 36."* 



* Kirwan Geol. Ess. 373. For the Salt Mountains of Persia, see 

 Olearius, 



VOL. IT, I, 



