IV FLAMINGOES 69 



the " Padre del sal," and the latter the " Madre ; " they state 

 that these progenitive salts always occur on the borders of the 

 Salinas, when the water begins to evaporate. The mud is black, 

 and has a fetid odour. I could not at first imagine the cause 

 of this, but I afterwards perceived that the froth which the 

 wind drifted on shore was coloured green, as if by confervse : I 

 attempted to carry home some of this green matter, but from 

 an accident failed. Parts of the lake seen from a short distance 

 appeared of a reddish colour, and this perhaps was owing to 

 some infusorial animalcula. The mud in many places was 

 thrown up by numbers of some kind of worm, or annelidous 

 animal. How surprising it is that any creatures should be able 

 to exist in brine, and that they should be crawling among 

 crystals of sulphate of soda and lime ! And what becomes of 

 these worms when, during the long summer, the surface is 

 hardened into a solid layer of salt ? 



Flamingoes in considerable numbers inhabit this lake, 

 and breed here ; throughout Patagonia, in Northern Chile, 

 and at the Galapagos Islands, I met with these birds 

 wherever there were lakes of brine. I saw them here wading 

 about in search of food — probably for the worms which 

 burrow in the mud ; and these latter probably feed on 

 infusoria or confervae. Thus we have a little living world 

 within itself, adapted to these inland lakes of brine. A 

 minute crustaceous animal (Cancer salinus) is said ^ to live in 

 countless numbers in the brine-pans at Lymington ; but only 

 in those in which the fluid has attained, from evaporation, 

 considerable strength — namely, about a quarter of a pound of 

 salt to a pint of water. Well may we affirm that every part 

 of the world is habitable ! Whether lakes of brine, or those 

 subterranean ones hidden beneath volcanic mountains — warm 

 mineral springs— the wide expanse and depths of the ocean — 



^ Linucean Trans, vol. xi. p. 205. It is remarkable how all the circumstances 

 connected with the salt-lakes in Siberia and Patagonia are similar. Siberia, like 

 Patagonia, appears to have been recently elevated above the waters of the sea. In 

 both countries the salt-lakes occupy shallow depressions in the plains ; in both the 

 mud on the borders is black and fetid ; beneath the crust of common salt, sulphate 

 of soda or of magnesia occurs, imperfectly crystallised ; and in both, the muddy sand 

 is mixed with lentils of gypsum. The Siberian salt-lakes are inhabited by small 

 crustaceous animals; and flamingoes (Edin. Ntio Philos. Jotm Jan. 1830) likewise 

 frequent them. As these circumstances, apparently so trifling, occur in two distant 

 continents, we may feel sure that they are the necessary results of common causes. — 

 See Pallas' s Travels, 1793 to 1794, pp. 1 29-134. 



