218 THE WORLD. 



and are based almost wholly on the saliferous or salt bearing rocks. 

 Two distinct strata of these salt rocks, known as the upper and 

 lower salt rocks, are found on the Muskingum, about 400 feet 

 apart. The stone itself is a white, or sometimes reddish tinted aqjl 

 porous sandstone, the upper, is 25 feet thick; and the lower 40, and 

 this yields the strongest brine. At Cheshire England, are nu- 

 merous brine springs, and the salt springs of Droitwitch, a small 

 town in Worcestershire, are superior to any other in the island; 

 they are supplied from beds of rock salt, or rather veins, lying be- 

 low a bed of gypsum ; for a long time the salt was made only 

 from the brine which penetrated this bed, but about a century ago 

 it was bored through and a large salt river was found to flow be- 

 low. The depth of the river of brine below the surface, is about 

 200 feet, 150 6f which are gypsum ; the river flows over a bed of 

 rock salt and is twenty-two inches deep. The origin of these 

 extended deposits of salt has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained. 

 The waters of the Dead Sea in Palestine, contain large quantities 

 of muriatic salts, derived from entire rocks of this mineral, con- 

 tinually dissolving on its southern shore. The water contains 

 forty-one parts in one-hundred of salt ; a much greater propor- 

 tion than that of the sea. It is impregnated also with other min- 

 eral substances, particularly bitumen, which floats upon its sur- 

 face in such large quantities as would elsewhere sink. The vol- 

 canic appearance of the country, the almost perpendicular, black 

 rock which bounds its eastern or Arabian side, and throws its 

 black shadow over the dark waters, and the limestone and sandy 

 cliffs on its western side, which tower up in fanciful shapes, lends 

 countenance to the opinion that these mineral substances are the 

 products of former volcanic action. We have now glanced at the 

 most prominent effects of springs in modifying and changing 

 the face of the globe ; although the effect of any individual spring 

 appears trifling, yet the aggregate of change either by disintegra- 

 ting, or consolidating, is immense. We have already alluded to 

 the transporting power of rivers. The small stream which is 

 supplied by springs, and which flows for hundreds of miles with 

 a power which seems scarcely sufficient to cany along a few 

 sands, by continual accessions swell* finally into an immense 



