68 RIO NEGRO chap. 



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. During the winter it 

 consists of a shallow lake of brine, which in summer is con- 

 verted into a field of snow-white salt. The layer near the 

 margin is from four to five inches thick, but towards the centre 

 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 brilliantly 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 hundred tons in weight, were lying ready for 

 exportation. 



The season for working the salinas forms the harvest of 

 Patagones ; for on it the prosperity of the place depends. 

 Nearly the whole population encamps on the bank of the 

 river, and the people are employed in drawing out the salt 

 in bullock -waggons. This salt is crystallised in great cubes, 

 and is remarkably pure : Mr. Trenham Reeks has kindly 

 analysed some for me, and he finds in it only 0.26 of gypsum 

 and 0.22 of earthy matter. It is a singular fact that it does 

 not serve so well for preserving meat as sea-salt from the Cape 

 de 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 sul- 

 phate of soda lie scattered about. The Gauchos call the former 



1 Report of the Agiicull. Chem. Assoc, in the Agrkult. Gazciic, 1845, p. 93. 



