566 SALT-LAKE — CATTLE BREEDING. Book III 
Among the mineral resources of California belongs com- 
mon salt, which is found abundantly in both forms, solid as 
well as fluid. Until very recently this article had been im- 
ported, among other localities, from the peninsula, on the 
coast of which exist layers of rock-salt. During my stay 
at Los Angeles I was asked to inspect a salt-spring on the 
coast, where the attempt had been made to establish salt- 
works. The space between the town and the sea consists 
of hills of the most recent formation, and is completely 
without trees ; in this respect the country exhibits the cha- 
racter of the prairies. Nevertheless, wherever the ground 
can be watered, it is adapted to agriculture. The salt- 
spring fills a small lake with saturated brine, so that the 
smallest evaporation causes crystallization. A spring of 
fresh water is on the edge of this salt-lake, and the 
whole is separated from the sea-shore by some sand-hills a 
few hundred paces wide, without however coming into 
contact with the water of the sea. With this situation, 
and the purity, concentration, and abundant quantity of the 
material, salt-works might have been carried on here most 
advantageously, in spite of the deficiency of fuel in the 
vicinity, had not, in this very part of the country, rich 
layers of rock-salt been afterwards discovered, which yielded 
the article even more cheaply. 
I have, in the preceding chapter, touched upon the im- 
portant subject of the breeding of cattle in the country 
behind Los Angeles. This section of the State comprises 
a large number of estates, each of which measures the 
extent of its area by square miles, and calculates the 
number of its cattle by thousands. On the whole, the 
Los Angeles county contained at that time about 100,000 
head of cattle, and 50,000 sheep. The breeding of 
the latter was a new thing, and the wealthy proprietors 
