434 
SALT. 
of violets. This singularity is particularly noticed 
in the lake of Elton, situated above Astracan, which 
the Kalmucks call the Golden Lake, from the red 
colour which its saline surface assumes when the sun 
shines upon it. 
Patrin supposes that the salt which is found in 
these lakes owes its origin to the atmosphere. He 
says that the most part of the salt-lakes which he 
has seen in Siberia are placed in such a situation as 
to preclude every idea of the salt which they con- 
tain being formed by any other agent than the at- 
mosphere. This mineralogist produces for an ex- 
ample the innumerable lakes which are found in 
the great desert of Baraba. This immense desert 
is surrounded on all sides by two large rivers, the 
Oby and the Irtysh, which rise near each other in 
the Altaisch mountains, from whence they spread 
to the east and west to the distance of a hundred 
and fifty leagues, and afterwards unite, after a run 
of about four hundred leagues. The space com- 
prised between these two rivers is not therefore of 
less extent than fifteen or twenty thousand square 
leagues, and the soil is entirely composed of a sedi- 
ment of river sand and clay. The surface is almost 
every where as level as the plains of Poland, and 
has scattered upon it hundreds of salt-lakes, which 
are from a thousand toises to several leagues in ex- 
tent, besides a vast many ponds of several toises in 
diameter. Whatever may be the extent of these 
lakes, their depth never exceeds a few feet. The 
water which collects in them proceeds from rain. 
