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NOTICES OF AUTHORS. 



nitre or other salts, combinations of potassa or of 

 soda, will depend on the climate, whether much or 

 little rain falls, and whether the rain water goes off 

 by evaporation or by drainage. In the case of little 

 rain, or the rain-water being nearly all evaporated, 

 nitre and other salts will accumulate in the soil, so 

 as, from their excess, to be injmious to vegetation ; 

 whereas, should much rain fall, or the rain-water be 

 chiefly carried off by drainage, vegetation may lan- 

 guish from deficiency of these salts, there being less 

 deposition of the salts, or the salts as they form be- 

 ing w^ashed away. The same will apply to the gra- 

 minivorous animals. Sea- salt, perhaps also nitre and 

 other salts, will be serviceable in a moist country, or 

 far from the sea, where the plants and v/ater contain 

 little saline matter, and probably pernicious in a dry 

 climate, where the plants and water generally con- 

 tain much saline matter. 



In the portion of the earth from the Atlantic 

 eastvv^ard, through Numidia, Libya, Eygpt, Nubia, 

 Arabia, Persia, as far as the Indus, from the enor- 

 mous ruins, and other vestiges of dense population, 

 as well as from ancient records, there must have ex- 



as almost to prevent vegetation, only a few of what are termed 

 saline plants appearing. This saline accumulation in warm dry- 

 countries, bears considerable analogy to tannin deposit in cold 

 coutnries. 



