Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1884-02-27
Gardens and Witches.

Gardens ana WtcheSs
Probably everyone associates the
word garden, with spot where either
useful and necessary vegetables grow
and ripen, or where lovely flowers open
their scented petals for our delight; but
there are other gardens than these,
cultivated, it is true, in the summer
season, as are those which are mere
familiar, but no flowers grace their
beds, unless we so term the geomeIrlc
crystals which ornament with unvary-
ing beauty the miry pits.
These "ssls gardens" as they are
called, are oftenest found In the torrid
climates of Africa and India where the
warm sun and mild air carry on natu-
raj process of evaporation.
The flow OF the tide is first admitted
into shallow pond, where the mud
and some of the other refuse is allowed
to settle, and from which the purer
water is drawn off into reservoirs,
further hack from the edge of the ocean
where a system of pipes causes it to
flow into shallower basins, arranged in
rectangular order, leaving cutters be-
tween them by which the water that
has deposited its coveted crystals is
drawn off.
Then the rough sediment is raked
into heaps, covered with straw, and
allowed TO remain for long time that
the natural moisture of the atmosphere,
by penetrating the mass, may gradually
u A from tho colt Of tho
chemical impurities associated with it.
Thus the natives render it ready for
market. Like most of the primitive
methods that have been employed by
man, however, this natural mode has
its disadvantages, as a rain storm ma
terially checks the process. Fortunately
kind and wise Providence, knowing
the vast Importance of this most essen
tial article, has stored up for us immense
masses both in solid and liquid form
where rain and tide cannot hinder our
securing il.
There is one mine near Liverpool,
England, from which crystals are OBJ
tanned as clear and colorless as glass.
From other mines, however, it comes
often in varying degrees of cloudy
color from gray to red, and must be
dissolved and purified. At Luneberg,
in Germany, the natural brine comes
yelling up from unknown reservoirs,
pure and unadulterated, never-failing
flow.
At Wimpfen, another German
spring, fresh water is let down by deep
shafts into the mass of salt, and then
pumped up through pipes occupying
the middle of the shaft. the water
having become saturated with the pre-
cious substance of the surrounding
stratum.
At Droiterich, in Worcestershire,
England, upon sinking shaft only
one hundred and seventy-five feet, the
natural brine rises to the surface and
overnows, if not pumped out. There
the brine is allowed to flow into iron
evaporating pans resting on flues by
which heat is brought beneath the pans.
The steam is carried off through OPEN
ngs in the roofs of the sheds, and, as
the heat can he increased nearly to the
boiling point, the evaporation is very
rapid and the crystals deposited are very
fine, and form our best quality of table
salt. The slower the evaporation, the
ooarser the grain of the salt; so the
gentler heat produces our bay salt and
other coarse kinds used for the curing
of meats, fish, etc., and the sailing of
cattle.
These natural wells of England are
in the vernacular dialect called wiehes,
and grants were made to them under
that title, by various Saxon kings,
even before the time of the Domesday
Book.
The amount of salt taken from these
wells or witches, must have been enor-
mons, for when duty was first laid on
salt in the year 1920, the amount yielded
by them was estimated at 10 600 tons
per annum. While considering these
foreign sources of supply, we must not
neglect our own great salt lakes and
mines In Pennsylvania. Virginia, Ohio.
New York, Louisiana and Utah. In
deed, all over North America there
seems to he salt wells of varying density.
In Canada there is large salt stratum
buried about eight hundred feet below
the surface.
Among the large deposits of rock
salt in North America is that of ''Petit
Anse," richly cultivated island in
Louisiana. There, on the estate of
Judge Daniel Avery, well was sunk
in 1861, resulting in the revealing, at
depth of only sixteen or eighteen
feet, of q rich deposit. BY the tun-
neTling that has since been done the
miners have not succeeded in reaching
the margins of the mine in any direc-
tion.
In sinking the shafts at Petit Anse,
large quantities of pottery, human bones
and stone implements were unearthed,
mingled with the bones of mastodons
and of deer and other game, proving
the truth of the old proverb that "there
is nothing new under the sum-" as evil
IDENTIFY, ages ago, man and beast sought
here their common necessity. Thus, in
1861. the mine was only rediscovered,
when the great need of our Southern
brethern was relieved by the finding
of this apparently limitiess supply Of
salt.
Indeed, so important an accessory is
thio W thO auiiiidi COllolituIlOl ludl
cases have been known where death
followed Its entire absence from food
for period, the mortal disease being
accompanied by symptoms of starvation
though food had been sufficient to sup
port life.
The widespread supply of salt is
most fortunate when we consider the
| immense number of uses to which il is
put, not only for the preservation Of