2$ TRAVELS IN 
south-east wind, and recovered itself immediately when the 
wind shifted. In short, the air becomes so much obscured 
with the saHne particles that objects can onlj be distin- 
guished through it at very short distances. And as these 
winds prevail for seven or eight months in the year, the 
mind can easily conceive that, in the lapse of ages, the 
quantity of salt carried upon the surrounding country, and 
wafted annually from thence into the common reservoir^ 
niight have accumulated to the present bulk. 
Were this, however, actually the case, it would naturally 
follow that all the reservoirs of water in the proximity of this 
sea-coast should contain, more or less, a portion of salt. 
Most of them in fact do so. Between the one in question 
and the sea, a distance of six miles, there are three other 
salt lakes, two of which are on a plain within a mile of the 
strand. None of these, how^ever, deposit a body of salt 
except in very dry summers when the greatest part of the 
water is evaporated. One is called the Red Salt pan, the 
crystals of salt produced in it being always tinged of a ruby 
color with iron. This lake is about twice the size of that 
above described. All these should seem to favor the suppo- 
sition of the salt being brought from the sea, were it not that 
close to the side of the lake that produces the greatest quan- 
tity is a stagnant pool or valley, the water of which is per- 
fectly fresh. Another strong argument against the hypothesis 
above assumed is the circumstance of our having discovered, 
on a future journey, several salt pans of the same kind be- 
hind the Snowy mountains, at the distance of two hundred 
miles from the sea-coast, and on an elevation that could not 
2 
