IV 
FLAMINGOES 
69 
the “ Padre del sal,” and the latter the “ Madre ; ” they state 
that these progenitive salts always occur on the borders of the 
salinas, when the water begins to evaporate. The mud is black, 
and has a fetid odour. I could not at first imagine the cause 
of this, but I afterwards perceived that the froth which the 
wind drifted on shore was coloured green, as if by confervae : I 
attempted to carry home some of this green matter, but from 
an accident failed. Parts of the lake seen from a short distance 
appeared of a reddish colour, and this perhaps was owing to 
some infusorial animalcula. The mud in many places was 
thrown up by numbers of some kind of worm, or annelidous 
animal. How surprising it is that any creatures should be able 
to exist in brine, and that they should be crawling among 
crystals of sulphate of soda and lime ! And what becomes of 
these worms when, during the long summer, the surface is 
hardened into a solid layer of salt ? 
Flamingoes in considerable numbers inhabit this lake, 
and breed here; throughout Patagonia, in Northern Chile, 
and at the Galapagos Islands, I met with these birds 
wherever there were lakes of brine. I saw them here wading 
about in search of food — probably for the worms which 
burrow in the mud ; and these latter probably feed on 
infusoria or confervae. Thus we have a little living world 
within itself, adapted to these inland lakes of brine. A 
minute crustaceous animal (Cancer salinus) is said 1 to live in 
countless numbers in the brine-pans at Lymington ; but only 
in those in which the fluid has attained, from evaporation, 
considerable strength—namely, about a quarter of a pound of 
salt to a pint of water. Well may we affirm that every part 
of the world is habitable ! Whether lakes of brine, or those 
subterranean ones hidden beneath volcanic mountains—warm 
mineral springs—the wide expanse and depths of the ocean— 
1 Linncean Trans, vol. xi. p. 205. It is remarkable how all the circumstances 
connected with the salt-lakes in Siberia and Patagonia are similar. Siberia, like 
Patagonia, appears to have been recently elevated above the waters of the sea. In 
both countries the salt-lakes occupy shallow depressions in the plains ; in both the 
mud on the borders is black and fetid ; beneath the crust of common salt, sulphate 
of soda or of magnesia occurs, imperfectly crystallised ; and in both, the muddy sand 
is mixed with lentils of gypsum. The Siberian salt-lakes are inhabited by small 
crustaceous animals; and flamingoes ( Edin. Nezv Philos. Jour. Jan. 1830) likewise 
frequent them. As these circumstances, apparently so trifling, occur in two distant 
continents, we may feel sure that they are the necessary results of common causes.— 
See Pallas's Travels , 1793 to 1794, pp. 129-134. 
