Meigs County telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy [Ohio]) 1848-1859, 1859-02-01
SnIt.

Salt is a chemical COMPOUND Of twenty
three parts, by weight, of beautiful sill
YER white but soft metal, sodium, discov-
cred by Sir Ill. Davy, in 1907, and thirty
i've parts Of a pungept, yellowish green
gas, called celorine, discovered by Schee-
lee, in 1774--these two combined form
this, the most widely diffused and useful
of any one compound in the world. ltis
found in the sea, and in the rocks, from
which our principal supply comes. The
most wonderful deposits are in Poland and
Hungary, where il is quarried like rock.
one Of the Polish mines having been
worked since 1851. ld .,.opntaD y.U
In Virginia there are bedssof salt, and
the Salmon Mountains, in Oregon, are ga
pable Of affording large quantities of the
same material. The brine springs of Sa,
lima and Syracuse are well 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 from which it. flows and runs into boil
ers. 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 be-
gins to boil, it becomes turbid, from thu
compounds of lime that 1t contains, and
which are soluble in cold, but not in hot
water; these first sediments are taken out
with ladies' called ''biLtern ladies', and
the salt being next deposited from the
brine, Is carried away to drain ana dry.
The remaining liquid contains great
quantity of N agnesia, i'll various forms, and
gives it the name of "bittern," from the
taste peculiar to maguesla III every lorm.
s'But how did this salt come into the
rock?" Is the natural query, and the won
der seems greater when we recollect that
salt beds are found in nearly every one of
: the strata composing the earth's crust
This fact proves another, that as the ma
, iority Of these salt beds have come from
lakes left III the hollows of the rocks by
the recedence of the sea, The sea has.
| through all the geological ages, been rs
e salt as it is to- day. Let us take the Great
= Salt Lake as an illustration, 1t being the
G 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
Il EARTH but as ours is the greatest ia extent,
" it will form the best example. 1t Is situa-
It ted at an elevation of 4 zoo feet above the
. sea, on the Rocky Mountains, and has al
= area of 9 900 square miles; yet, high as /
IA is, it was once part of the sea, which re
o1 tired, by the spheaval OF the rocks, ant
IS that great basin took it's salt water HI
ar with it. Should this, in time, evaporate
and its salt become covered with mud ant
sand, and the land again be depressed
T. then, at some distant future age, the peo
,e pie would be wondering how the sal: go
of there. There are also, however, salt rock
of taking their place in regular.geologic serie
u With o.her rocks, interspersed between re-
'e sandstone. magnesia and carboniferou
le strata. These we can only account for, a
ar we do for ether stratified rocks: that the
a. were deposited from their solution in wa
ter, or carried mechanically to the spo
~ where now found by the ever mobile lie
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