SALT-LAKES OR SALINAS, 83 



however, improving; they are willing to labour, 

 and a short time since a party went on a sealing 

 voyage, and behaved very well. They were now 

 enjoying the fruits of their labour, by being dress- 

 ed in very gay, clean clothes, and by being very 

 idle. The taste they showed in their dress was 

 admirable ; if you could have turned one of these 

 young Indians into a statue of bronze, his drapery 

 would have been perfectly graceful. 



One day I rode to a large salt-lake, or Salina, 

 which is distant fifteen miles from the town. Du- 

 ring the winter it consists of a shallow lake of brine, 

 which in summer is converted into a field of snow- 

 white salt. The laj'er near the margin is from 

 four to five inches thick, but towards the centi'e its 

 thickness increases. This lake was two and a half 

 miles long, and one broad. Others occur in the 

 neighbourhood many times larger, and with a floor 

 of salt two and three feet in thickness, even when 

 under water during the winter. One of these brill- 

 iantly-white and level expanses, in the midst of the 

 brown and desolate plain, offers an extraordinary 

 spectacle. A large quantity of salt is annually 

 drawn from the salina ; and great piles, some hun- 

 dred tons in weight, were lying ready for exporta- 

 tion. The season for working the salinas forms 

 the harvest of Patagones, for on it the prosperity 

 of the place depends. Nearly the whole popula- 

 tion encamps on the bank of the river, and the peo- 

 ple are emjiloyed in drawing out the salt in bullock- 

 wagons. This salt is crystallized in great cubes, 

 and is remarkably pure : INIr, Trenham Reeks has 

 kindly analyzed some for me, and he finds in it only 

 0*26 of gypsum and 0-22 of earthy matter. It is a 

 singidar fact that it does not sei-ve so well for pre- 

 serving meat as sea-salt from the Cape de Verd 

 islands ; and a merchant at Buenos Ayres told me 



