Arkansas true Democrat., 1859-01-19
"The Salt, YOU Please D

C'e's oouF Has partlailty Tor dinner, and one of the most frequent expressions at din- her table Is the one which forms our caption: and, in order that our readers may know some thing ot the substance they are using, we will tell them few facts about salt Salt ia A chemical compound of twentv-tbree parts bv weight of a beautifully silver white but soft metal called sodium, discovered by Sir H. Davy in 1897, and thirty-tive parts of pungent vel lowlsh green gas called chlorine, discovered by Scheele In l774; these two combined form this the most widely dltfused and useful of any ope compound Ill the world. It is found in the sea and ln the rocks, from which our principal supply comes. The most wonderful deposits are In Poland and Hungary, where 1t is euarr- ed like rock; one of the Polish mines having been worked since 1251. The Polish salt mines have heard the groan 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, Rus sia or Poland, whichever happened to be in power at the time; and once the offender. or fancled hindrance to some other persons ad- vancement, was let down into this subtefraneaa prison, he never saw the light of day again.- So salt has its history as we'll as science Other large deposits are found in Cheshire, England, where the water is forced down by pipes into the salt and pumped up as brine, which is evs- porated. and the salt obtained. To such an ex- tent has this been carried that one town in the salt country" as 1t 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. -..4-HT .7a
 In Virginia there are beds of salt, and tho Lalmon Mountains in Oregon, are capable of aifording large quantities of the same material. ho brip If C,l;D we'll known, and from about forty gallons of this 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 1t flows and runs into boil lers. These boilers are large iron kettles set in brickwork, and when fires are lighted under them the brine is quickly evaporated. The moment the brine begins to boil it becomes tur- bid, from the compounds of lime that it con- talns, and which are soluble in cold but not in hot water; these first sediments are taken out with ladies called bittern ladies'" and the salt being next deposited from the brine is carried away to drain and dry. The remaining liquid contains great quantity of magnesia in vari- ous forms, and gives 1t the name of bittern." from the taste peculiar to magnesa 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 l found h nearly every one of the strata compos- ing the earth's crust. This fact proves another: that as the majority of these salt beds have come from lakes left in the hollows of the rocks by the recedence of the sea, the sea has through all the geologic ages been salt as it is to-day Let us take the Great Salt Lake as an llustra- tion, it being the largest salt lake in the world but by DO 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. It is situated at an elevation of 4,200 feet above the level of the sea, on the Rocky Mountains, and has an area of 5000 square miles; yet, high as it is, "once upon tlme," as the story books of our juvenility used to say, it was part of the sea. which retired by the upheaval of the rocks. and that great basin took its salt water up with it, Should thls n time evaporate, and its salt be- come covered with mud and sand and the land aSa,n De depressed, then at some distant future age the people would be wondering how tho salt got there, little thinking that the Mormons nad ever built city on its shores when 1t was great salt lake. There are also, however, salt rocks taking their places in regular geologic series with other rocks, interspersed between red sandstone, magnetism and carboniferous strata; these we can only account for as we do for other stratifed rocks, viz: that they were deposited from their solution in water, or car- ried mechanically to the spot where now found by that ever noble liquid. We fear We should be accused of an attempt to put our readers in pickle, so will stay our pen, hoping they will remember these bits of information when next they say, "The salt if you please" s."-Scietiks Amerycan. -.s.