312 Salt Lakes. paet n< 



fresh-water can often be procured in wells. 1 and is some- 

 times found in small lakes, quite close to these salinas. 

 I am not aware that this fact bears particularly on the 

 origin of the salt ; but perhaps it is rather opposed to 

 the view of the salt having been washed out of the 

 surrounding superficial strata, but not to its having 

 been the residue of sea-water, left in depressions as the 

 land was slowly elevated. 



1 Sir W. Parish states (' Buenos Ayres,' &c. pp. 122 and 170) that 

 this is the case near the great salinas westward of the S. Yentana. 

 1 have seen similar statements in an ancient MS. Journal lately 

 published by S. Angelis. At Iquique, where the surface is so thickly 

 encrusted with saline matter, I tasted water only slightly brackish, 

 procured in a well thirty-six yards deep ; but here one feels less sur- 

 prise at its presence, as pure water might percolate under ground 

 from the not very distant Cordillera. 



