Pointe Coupee Democrat. [volume] (False River [i.e. New Roads], Parish of Pointe Coupee [La.]) 1858-1862, 1858-12-04
" The Salt, if you Please"

Everybody has partially for dinner,
and one of the most frequent expressions
at dinner table is the one which forms
ONT caption, and in order that our read
ers may know something of the sub
stance they are using, we will tell them
a few facts about salt Salt is chem
ical compound Of twenty-three parts by
weight of a beautifully silver white but
soft metal, called sodium, discovered by
Sir H. Davy in 1907, and thirty-ive parts
Of a pungent, yellowish green gas. called
chlorine, discovered by Scheele i'll l774
-the>e two combined form this, the
most widely d;tfused and useful of any
one compound in the world. 1t is found
in the sea, and in the rocks, from which
our principal supply comes. The most
wondetul depos.tes are i'll Poland aud
Hungary where it is quarried like rock,
one Of the Polish mines having been
worked since 1851. These Polish salt
mines have heard the groan Of many a
poor captive, and have seen the last ag
onies Of many a brave man, for until
lately, they were worked entirely by the
state prisoners of Austria, RUSSIA or
Poland, whichever happened to be in
power at the time; and once the offend
er, or fancied hindrance to some other
PERSONS advancement, was let down in
to this subterranean prison, he never
saw the light Of day again. So salt has
its history as we'll as science. Other
large deposites are found in Cheshire,
England, where the water is forced down
by pipes into the salt, and is again
pumped up as brine, which is evaporat-
ed and the salt obtained. To such All
extent has this been carried that one
town in the salt country" as it is call
ed, has scarcely an upright house in it,
all the foundations having sunk with the
ground, to fill up the cavity left by the
extracted salt.
In Virginia there are beds of salt, and
the Salmon Mountains, M Oregon, are
capable of affording large quantities of
the same material. The brine springs
of Salina and Syracuse are we'll known,
and from about forty gallons Of their
brine, one bushel of salt is obtained
There are also extensive salt springs in
Ohio The brine. is pumped up from
wells made in the rock, and into which
it flows and runs into boilers. These
boilers are large iron kettles set in brick
work, and when fires are lighted under
them, the brine is quickly evaporated.
The moment the brine begins to boil, it
becomes turbid, from the compounds of
lime that it contains, and which are SOL
uble in cold, but not in hot water; these
first sediments are taken out with ladies
called "bittern ladies'" and the salt be-
ing next deposited from the brine is
carried away to drain and dry. The re-
naming liquid contains u great quantity
of magnesia in various forms, and gives
it the name of " bittern," from the taste
peculiar to magnesia in every form.
"But how did this salt come into the
rock?" is the natural query, and the
wonder seems greater when we recollect
that salt-beds are found in nearly every
ore of the strata composing the earth's
crust. This fact proves another, that; .
the majority of these salt-beds have
G me from lakes left in the hollows of
the rocks by the recedence of the sea.
the sea has through all the geological
ages been as salt as it is to-day. Let
us take the Great Salt Lake as an illus.
tration. it being the largest salt lake in
the world, but by nc means the only enc,