The Cairo daily bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1870-1872, 1872-10-20
MISCELLANEOUS.
WHAT MAKES THE SEA SALT?


We published in our May number
page us "a letter from a correspondent,
who says it is "a fact tina, the ocean
was salt three millions of ages before
there was any land at all - Admitting
for arguments sake that there was a
period when the ocean covered all the
surface Of the earth, it must be &C.
knowledged that the bottom of the
ocean was land, out of which those ma
terials which were soluble in
water would be extracted to consider
able extent.
But it is not certain that the prime
val ocean was salt, in the usual sense Of
the word. Quite possibly it contained
predominately sulphates, instead Of
chlorides. These sulphates, as many
suppose, have been preciprtated in insol-
ube forms. At the present day, all
rivers carry salt and other soluble ma.
terial to the ocean and, as the sole out
let of the sea is evaporation, which car
ries pure water only upward, and
leaves the different soluble salts behind,
we are even driven to the conclusion
that the sadness OF the ocean is contin-
ually in reasing. The Rhine, for in
stance, carries every year TO the ocean
80 million million gallons of water,
every gallon Of water contains ten
grains OF salts in solution. This river
alone, therefore, increases the salts in
the ocean by the amount Of twenty
million tons per year, (sec page AZ OF
this volume,) But the Rhine is com
paratively a.small river, carrying not
the two hundreth part of the water
which the ocean receives from other
rivers moreover, Its water is COMPARE
lively pure, as most rivers carry more
than ~ grains per gallon. We may safely
say, therefore, that all the rivers Of the
earth Garry every year more thaa 200
times twenty millions, or 1900 mil
lion tons of dissolved salts into the
ocean.
1t is equally undeniable that rivers
have been flowing in this way for ages.
Consequently We have only to suppose
that circumstances have been, during
sufficient portion of the past, what We
know they are now, and the sadness Of
the present ocean is necessary result,
even if it commenced by being fresh.
Let us see now what geology has re.
vealed to us in this respect. Our cor
respondent acknowledges that the ocean
existed ages ago. Thisagrees with the
teachings of geology, but We may con-
clude, ALSO that ages before the exist
ence of the liquid ocean, the whole OF it
enveleped the hot nucleus of the earth
as an immense atmosphere of vapor or
steam, and containing, under heat and
pressure, the constituents Of many
ocks. We now know to how great an
extent the chemical activity and solvent
power of water, or its vapor, is in
creased by heat and pressure.
When the earth had cooled SO much
as to diminish gradually the solvent
power Of hot water and steam, those
substances which required the higher
temperature and pressure to be kept
in solution were slowly deposited, in
the order of their different degrees of
solubility, while only those remained
in solution which were soluble at the
lower temperatures portion of the
salts contained in the ocean are posi-
bly,, therefore, the remnants Of a much
more concentrated solution, existing in
the early geological periods.
There were inland lakes at that time,
as we'll as now, forming deposits of
solid salt, CT, stabilized out OF their sat
urated waters, which had received the
washings from the surrounding country,
a process which we may still observe in
the Great Salt lake, the Caspian Sea,
the Dead Sea, and scores Of others, BY
slow upheavals Of depressions, the
water.supply Of these lakes ceased
they dried up, and left the salt deposits
in England, Prussia, Poland, eto., from
which we now derive our so-called rock.
salt, or through which water runs, aud
by its exit forms the different kinds Of
saline springs, As in the case near SYRIA