Glasgow weekly times. (Glasgow, Mo.) 1848-1861, 1858-11-11
1.-THE Salt, if You Please. .

Everybody has partIallty for dinner, and one
of the most frequent expressions at dinner table
Is the one which forms our caption, and in order
that our readers may know something of the sub
stance they are using, will tell them few facts
about salt. Salt is a chemical compound CT twen-
ty-three parts byweigft of beautifully silver
white but soft metal, called sodium, discovered by
Sir II. Davy in 1897, and thirty-fve parts of
pungent, yeowish green gas: called chlorine, dis
covered by Scheele in 1744-these two combined
form this, the most widely difTused and useful Of
any one compound in the world. It is found in
the sea, and in the rocks, from which our princi-
pal supply comes. The most wonderful deposits
are in Poland and Hungary where if is quarried
like rock, one of the Polish mines having been
worked since l251. These Polish salt mines have
heard the gToan of many a-poor captive. and have
seen The last agonies of many a brave man, for
until lately, they were worked entirely by the
state prisoners OF Austria, Russia Poland, which
ever happened TO be i'll power at the time; and
once the offender, or fanciet hndrance to some
other persons advancement, was let down into
this subterranean prison, he saw the light of
day again. So salt has its history as well as SCI
ence. Other large deposits are found in Chesh-
ire, England, where the water is forced down by
pipes in the salt and is again pumped up brine,
which is evaporated and the salt obtained. To
such an extent has this been carried, that one town
in the ssat country" as il is called, 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 Sal
mon Mountains, in Oregon, are capable of afford
ing large quantities of the same material. The
brine springs of Salna and Syracuse are well
known, and from about forty gallons of their
brine; cne ttshel Of salt is obtained. There are
also extensive salt springs in Ohio. The brine is
pumped from wells made in the rock: sid into
which its flows and runs into boilers. These boil
ers are large iron kettles set in brickwork, and
when fires are lighted under them, the brine is
quickly evaporaied. The moment the BRINE be-
gins to boil, it becomes turbid, from the COM
pounds o. line that il contains and which are sol
ube in cold, but not in hot water; these first sed-
iments are taken out with ladies' called "bittern
ladIes,'' ana tlie sat being next deposited from
the brine, is carried away 10 drain and dry. The
remaining liquid ccntains great quantity Of mag
nesia in various forrrs and gives it the name Of
"bittern'' from the taste peculiar to nagnssia In
every FORM. -........- -.-..
!But how did the salt core into the rock?" is
the natural query, and t'Ie #bnder seems greater
when we recollect that sat-beds arc fcrEd IN near
" every one of the strata composing the earth's
crust. This fact proves another, that a ma
ority of these salt-beds have from LAKES left
ir the h5ows of the rocks by the recedence of
ihe sea, the sea has through all the geologic ages
been as salt as il is to-day. Let US take the Great
Salt Lake as an Illustration. it being the largest
salt lake in the world, but by no means the only
one, as such inland masses of saline water are
found over the whole earth, but as Ours is the
greatest in extent, it will form the best example.
II is situated at an elevation Of 1920 feet above
the sea, on the Rocky Mfcu,.tars, and has an area
of 900 square miles; yet high as il is, once up
Oh time,'' as the story-books of our Juvenality
used TO say, it WIS part of the sea, which retired
by the uphcaval of the rocks, and that great basH
took It's salt water UP with u. Should ts IN time
evaporate, and its salt become covered with mud
and sand and the land again be depressed; then at
some distant future age, the people would be won
dering how the salt go. there, little thinking that
the MorInons had ever built city on its shores
when it was great salt Like. There are also,
however, salt rocks taking their place in regular
geologic series with other rocks, interspersed be-
tween red sandstone; magnesian and carbonfer-
ous strata; these we can only account for, as we
do for other ST. atfed rocks, viz: that they were
deposited from ;heir solution in water or carried
mechanic ally 10 the spot where now found by
FIAT ever bile'liquid. We fear we should be
accused of an attempt to put our readers in pickle.
so will stay pen, hoping they will remember
these bits of information when next they say:
..The salt, if yeu please