72 THE CHEMISTRY OF CREATION. 



naturally formed by water percolating through 

 the soil to the salt-beds, there dissolving a 

 portion of the salt, and then being pumped up 

 by machinery. From this brine table-salt is 

 procured by boiling down in large flat iron 

 pans, in which it crystallizes, and from which 

 it is ladled out, poured into wooden moulds, and 

 dried. 



There are a large number of salt-works con- 

 stantly in operation, which by means of power- 

 ful steam-engines are continually pumping up 

 immense quantities of brine, and so remov- 

 ing constantly large portions of the salt-beds 

 beneath, which disappear under the dissolving 

 influence of water. At a very large salt-work 

 the annual quantity of salt thus dissolved out 

 is considerably upwards of 52,000 tons ! In 

 other words, we may say that water in the im- 

 mediate neighbourhood of this factory carries 

 away every year upwards of 52,000 tons 

 of solid material from the ground beneath. 

 Conceive the effect of this in twenty or thirty 

 years ! Above all, conceive the effect of many 

 large works, each draining away many thousands 

 of tons even in a single year! Multitudes 

 of railway excavators could not make such a 

 cavity in the earth in the same space of time 

 as does the water acting simply as a solvent. 

 As may be imagined, all this does not go on 



