62 KIO NEGRO. [ciur. iv. 



preserving meat as sea-salt from the Cape cle Verd islands ; and a 

 merchant at Buenos Ayres told me that he considered it as fifty 

 per cent, less valuable. Hence the Cape de Verd salt is constantly 

 imported, and is mixed with that from these salinas. The purity 

 of the Patagonian salt, or absence from it of those other saline 

 bodies found in all sea-water, is the only assignable cause for this 

 inferiority: a conclusion which no one, I think, would have 

 suspected, but which is supported by the fact lately ascertained,* 

 that those salts answer best for preserving cheese which contain 

 most of the deliquescent chlorides. 



The border of the lake is formed of mud : and in this numerous 

 large crystals of gypsum, some of which are three inches long, lie 

 embedded; whilst on the surface others of sulphate of soda lie 

 scattered about. The Gauchos call the former 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 conferva : 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 anirnalcula. 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 conferva. Thus we have 

 a little living world within itself, adapted to these inland lakes of 

 brine. A minute crustaceous animal (Cancer salinus) is said f to 



* lleport of the Agricult. Chcra. Assoc. in the Agricult. Gazette, 1815. 

 p. 93. 



t Linnsean Trans., vol. xi. p. 205. It is remarkable how all the circum- 

 stances connected -with the salt-lakes in Siberia and Patagonia arc 

 similar. Siberia, like Patagonia, appears to have been recently elevated 



