Beck on Salt Storms, ire. 391 



Admitting the correctness of these experiments, still it is 

 not easy to conceive, how they will account satisfactorily for 

 the large quantities of salt found in the air during the storms 

 under consideration. 



Whichever of these solutions may be adopted, it is unques- 

 tionably a fact that salt does, in some way or other, exist in 

 the atmosphere in the neighbourhood of the sea. 



2. The next object of inquiry is, the influence which this 

 saline air has upon vegetable life. Independently of the facts 

 already stated, there are many others which prove its dele- 

 terious agency upon the vegetable creation. Dr. Mitchill 

 informs me, that in some parts of the south side of Long-Island 

 fruit trees do not thrive well, except at a distance of thirty 

 miles from the sea, and even the sturdy oak does not extend 

 its branches towards the ocean.* If I am correctly informed, 

 it was with great difficulty, that the trees on our Battery were 

 made to accommodate themselves to a situation so near the 

 salt water. It is also well known, that when plants are taken 

 to sea, they speedily perish, if exposed but a short time to a 

 wind, which is sufficiently strong to turn over the tops of the 

 waves into white caps, as they are called by the sailors. 



In order to ascertain positively, whether these effects were 

 to be attributed to the operation of salt, I made a solution of 

 muriate of soda in common rain water ; with this I watered 

 for a couple of days the leaves of different plants. In a short 

 time they began to dry up, and in a few days were completely 

 dead. 



It appears from Volney, that the Egyptian air is strongly 

 charged with salts. The evidences of it are to be found even 

 at Cairo.! It is this property of the air, which this philoso- 

 phical traveller considers, as one of the causes of the rapid 

 vegetation in that country. He mentions, however, that exotic 

 plants will not thrive there. It is found necessary to renew 

 the seeds of them every year. May not this be occasioned 



* That is, in those oaks which grow near the salt water, the branches thai 

 directly face the sea do not attain so great size and strength as those on the oppo- 

 site side ; this has also been observed on the south side of Long-Island, 

 f Volney' 8 Travels in Syria and Egypt. Vol. I. p. 48. Perth ed. 



