Richmond daily palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1876-1904, 1898-05-06
SIGNS IN THE SALT.

! l0uReStG0
the Universal Condimenf.
Salt is probably the only article of
food which has been used by every
nation and in every age since the
beginning of civilization. More su-
perstitions are naturally connected
with it than with any other article
of food
In ancient times, before trade was
as well organized as it is now, salt
was very scarce and costly. From
this gradually grew up the eastern
custom that whoever should eat salt
together-the most precious posses
sion-must be friends for life.
The belief that il is unlucky to
spill salt at table is of similar origin
and equal age. There is an allusion
TO it in Leonardo da Vinci's great
painting of THE Last Supper, "
which represents Judas as knocking
over the salt cellar while reaching
out his hand. The Romans had this
superstition and took extreme pre-
cautions to avoid splitting salt.
Many fierce battles have been
waged for the possession of saline
springs by animals as well as men.
The Big Bone Lick, Kentucky salt
spring, was in the early days of the
settlement surrounded by many
tons of bones, some of extinct beasts,
that had been killed there fighting
for taste. Most of these were de-
Sfrauo5 lint Iaf9orcan opl ofhorc
rescued many specimens. The In
dians got salt from the same spring
and in central New York and traded
it far and wide among the tribes.
Many nations held salt sacred.
The Germans believed that soil
made salt by saline springs was pc
culiarly holy. The Scriptures speak
frequently of 1.-The covenant of
salt" The Mexicans had goddess
of salt whose more or less musical
name was Huixtocilmatl.
There is an eastern tale of man
who went to rob house by night.
Stumbling upon an object in the
dark, he put his tongue to it to as
certain its nature. 1t was a bit of
sock salt. The man gave up his
idea of robbing house whose own
er's salt he had eaten. Cogia Hous-
sain of The Forty Thieves" was
more willy. He would not eat in
his intended victim house lest
there might be salt in some of the
dishes.
Some of the "tacky whites" of theI
south put salt in their shoes to keep
off witches. The Chinese, in observ
ing the last festival of the year,
throw salt upon the fresh built fire
in front of the ancestral tablets. Inl
many remote parts of the world
cakes or blocks of rock salt havel
been used as money, and a man who
was not worth his SALT was al
pretty poor fellow.-New York
Wor.@.
To the Pole with Steam Rams.
Boats described as steam rams are i
now in use in ice locked Russian har-
bors and rivers and have proved that
they can force their way through thick
ice, even with ~ degrees of frost. The
harbor of Vladivostok, till of late her
metiCally sealed for four or hye months,
has since 1898 been kept accessible
through the winter, the Finnish port
of Hango is now open to commerce
throughout the year, and last winter
similar steam ram kept up connection
with the Ural railway through the ice
of the Volga at Saratoff. 1t is proposed
now to keep open by stronger boats OF
this kind communication of st. Peters
burg with the sea and to force winter
connection through the ice from Arch
angel to the mouth of the Yenisei. Ad-
miral Makarof. addressing the Russian
Geographical society, insisted that still
more powerful boats of this kind might
safely be counted on to cope with polar
ice, such as hansen had to deal with,
and to cut passage to the north pole
Cham bers' Journal.