8 



The value of these bodies of inland salt water, as geological 

 loitnesses of change, results from their very nature. Saline 

 waters hold a large amount of solid matter in solution and 

 mechanical suspension. Their deposits are large, well 

 defined and unmistakable in character. There is in the 

 neighborhood of the Dead Sea a range of hills 7 miles long 

 and 300 feet high, said to be formed entirely of rock salt. 

 Similar formations of chloride of sodium are to be met 

 with in all the salt lake regions, and not only there, but 

 in many places now far removed from present salt water 

 areas. These deposits generally occur with marls, sand- 

 stone, gypsum, etc., and in some cases, infusoria, bromides, 

 iodides, iron, etc. ai^e to be met with. 



These saline deposits are to be found throughout the 

 crust of the earth — " In the British Islands in trias or new 

 red sandstone — in the oolitic strata in the Salzburg Alps — 

 with cretaceous green sands in Spain — with chalk and 

 tertiary rocks in the district of the Pyrenees — and in the 

 carboniferous and older strata." " It is thus the product of 

 all ages." 



The assertion that the present waters of the earth may 

 have held all this now solid salt in solution, at different 

 times, cannot stand before the accumulating proofs that 

 there is actually less water upon the earth's surface than 

 formerly. It becomes indeed a proof that there is less 

 liquid — or water surface — for if this now solid salt were 

 once again dissolved, or in liquid form, its increased surface 

 area would afford increased evaporating surface. Only 

 pi\re water is evaporated, all solid particles are left behind, 

 so that if it shall be proved that the elements of pure water 

 have been used in the opey^ttions of nature, either from the 

 evaporated or precipitated waters, there must have been 

 always upon every part of the earth's surface, at every 

 period of the* formation of the solid crust, an excess of 

 evaporation over preciptation, gradual supersaturation of 

 inland bodies of salt waters and their final entire dessication. 



