502 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ces were impure, water, that indispensable to vegetable and ani- 

 mal life, was pure. It is never found in nature perfectly so; 

 that which descends in rain is contaminated by the impurities it 

 v/ashes out of the atmosphere, that which rises in springs by the 

 impure matters it meets within the earth. 



In snow, the impurities can be observed by the naked eye. It 

 is frequently of a red color as it flows through the red marl, con- 

 taining oxide of iron. It descends with a milky hue from the 

 glaciers of Iceland, holding white earth in solution. It is grey in 

 muddy English rivers, and brown when issuing from boggy places; 

 it is black where vegetable matter abounds, as in the Rio Negro, 

 of South America; and is green in the geysers of Iceland and 

 Swiss lakes, because of the yellow substances which it holds in 

 suspension. The presence of many materials which it dissolves 

 in its passage through the earth cannot be detected by the sense 

 of sight. Therefore the clearest and most transparent waters, 

 even when filtered, are never pure. Much has been said recently 

 at the meetings of this Club against the use of salt, and as I con- 

 sider it, next to bread, by ftu' the most important necessary of 

 life, perhaps I may be excused for speaking of it in this paper. 

 Why is it that God furnished the wild buftaio of North America 

 with instincts to guide him on the boundless prairie hundreds of 

 miles to the salt-licks; the wild animals in the central parts of 

 Southern Africa to the salt-springs; and om- domestic cattle to 

 come peacefully to the hand of the agriculturist that offers them 

 a taste of this most delicious luxury. From time out of mind 

 it has been well known that without salt man Avould have 

 wretchedly perished; and among awful punishments, entailing 

 death that of feeding prisoners on food devoid of salt, is said to 

 have been practised in barbarous times. 



Maggots and corruption are spoken of by ancient writers as the 

 destroying symptoms which saltless food engenders. Chemistry 

 has taught us why the animal man as well as beast craves salt, 

 why they suffer discomfort, why they ultimately -fall into disease, 

 if salt is for a time withheld. More than half the saline matter 

 of the blood, says Johnson, to whom I acknowledge indebtedness, 

 consists of common salt, and as this is partly discharged every 

 day through the skin and kidneys, the necessity of continued 

 supplies to the body becomes sufficiently obvious. The bile also 

 contains salt as an ingredient constituent, and so do the cartilages 

 of the body. Stint the supply of salt therefore to your children 

 or your beasts, and neither will the bile properly assist the diges- 



