IV SALITRALES ii 



the morning they were soon exhausted from not having 

 had anything to drink, so that we were obh'ged to walk. 

 About noon the dogs killed a kid, which we roasted. I ate 

 some of it, but it made me intolerably thirsty. This was the 

 more distressing as the road, from some recent rain, was full of 

 little puddles of clear water, yet not a drop was drinkable. I 

 had scarcely been twenty hours without water, and only part of 

 ■ the time under a hot sun, yet the thirst rendered me very weak. 

 How people survive two or three days under such circum- 

 stances, I cannot imagine : at the same time, I must confess 

 that my guide did not suffer at all, and was astonished that one 

 day's deprivation should be so troublesome to me. 



I have several times alluded to the surface of the ground 

 being incrusted with salt. This phenomenon is quite different 

 from that of the salinas, and more extraordinary. In many 

 parts of South America, wherever the climate is moderately 

 dry, these incrustations occur ; but I have nowhere seen them 

 so abundant as near Bahia Blanca. The salt here, and in 

 other parts of Patagonia, consists chiefly of sulphate of soda 

 with some common salt. As long as the ground remains 

 moist in these salitrales (as the Spaniards improperly call 

 them, mistaking this substance for saltpetre), nothing is to be 

 seen but an extensive plain composed of a black, muddy soil, 

 supporting scattered tufts of succulent plants. On returning 

 through one of these tracts, after a week's hot weather, one is 

 surprised to see square miles of the plain white, as if from a 

 slight fall of snow, here and there heaped up by the wind into 

 little drifts. This latter appearance is chiefly caused by the 

 salts being drawn up, during the slow evaporation of the 

 moisture, round blades of dead grass, stumps of wood, and 

 pieces of broken earth, instead of being crystallised at the 

 bottoms of the puddles of water. 



The salitrales occur either on level tracts elevated only 

 a few feet above the level of the sea, or on alluvial land 

 bordering rivers. M. Parchappe ^ found that the saline in- 

 crustation on the plain, at the distance of some miles from 

 the sea, consisted chiefly of sulphate of soda, with only seven 

 per cent of common salt ; whilst nearer to the coast, the 



• Voyage dans rAmerique Ah'rid. par M. A. d'Orbigny. Part. Hist. torn. i. p. 

 664. 



G 



