sometimes more than a foot thick. The resources of British India in salt are great, but comparatively unimportant from the monopoly of the government, and salt is largely imported from England. Still vast beds of rock salt are worked in the Punjaub at the foot of the Himalaya, and great quantities are obtained from the incrustations over the plains near the mouth of the Indus, and from various other portions of the Indian peninsula. The salt wells of China are remarkable for their great depth and immense numbers. China and Java are wholly dependent upon their own resources for salt, admitting no importations.—Africa contains extensive tracts of salt lands and beds of rock salt in the desert of Sahara, particularly in the N. and W. portions, as in that, part called Tanezruft, on the route between Tuat and Timbuctoo. The trade in salt with Soodan furnishes a support for many of the inhabitants of the desert. Near Biskra is a mountain of salt in the cretaceous formation; and another is found near the salt lake Zagrez. This lake is in some seasons covered with a glistening white crust of excellent salt, like ice, amounting to even one or two feet in thickness. Similar lakes are met with in this region, and also in Abyssinia. In central Africa, salt from salt lakes is perhaps the most important article of commerce.—In the Hawaiian islands salt is procured from the lakes near Honolulu, and is exported.—In South America, rock salt is found in Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela; in the pampas of the south and the elevated plains of Peru, it occurs as an incrustation; in Patagonia and the Argentine Republic are productive salt lakes; in Colombia it is obtained from springs, and in Brazil from lagoons on the coast. The salines or salt lakes of the pampas extend from Port St. Julian in Patagonia, lat. 49° S., through the Argentine Republic, to lat. 25° S. They are generally shallow, and in the wet season the whole or a part of the salt is dissolved, and redeposited during the dry season, when the appearance of the snow-white expanse, crystallized in great cubes, is very striking. Patagonian salt is still a large article of commerce with other parts of South America. It is of the greatest purity, requiring no preparation, and containing only 0.26 per cent. of gypsum and 0.22 of earthy matter, without a trace of iodic salts. The beds of various salts in the elevated plains of Tarapaca in Peru, especially around Iquique, are among the most remarkable in the world. The porphyritic mountains on the coast rise abruptly to a height of between 1,900 and 3,000 ft.; between their summits and an inland plain, on which lies the celebrated deposit of nitrate of soda, is a high undulatory district, covered by a crust chiefly composed of common salt, either in white, hard, opaque nodules, or mingled with sand, forming a compact sandstone. This never attains a great thickness, though in the pampa of Tamarugal, in S. Peru, Mr. J. H. Blake saw a considerable space covered with round masses of salt, 5 or 6 ft. in diameter, piled upon each other. In some places they were deep red, but in the vicinity of Pisco they were sufficiently pure for culinary purposes. The inhabitants employed them in building their houses. As rain falls here only at intervals of many years, the deposits are subjected to very little waste. Colombia has very rich mines of rock salt, especially in the district of Zipaquira. The mineral extends many miles across a branch of the Cordillera. Salt springs are also found here. On the N. coast are lagoons of great capacity of production. The salt mines of Araya, in the peninsula N. of Cumaná in Venezuela, were discovered by the followers of Columbus in 1499; and as they offered an inexhaustible supply of the finest salt, they continued for years to attract adventurers of all nations. The Dutch islands of Curaçoa and Buen Ayre, N. of Venezuela, produce several hundred thousand barrels annually by natural evaporation and of the finest quality, much of which is exported to the United States. A large number of the West India islands produce salt, especially the southern Bahamas, Cuba, Porto Rico, St. Martin, and St. Christopher or St. Kitts. Turk's island, S. E. of the Bahamas, was formerly the main source of sea salt for the United States, and even now most of the salt from any of the West India islands, or from Yucatan, is called Turk's island salt. Since 1833 the manufacture has fallen off here, while it has grown up in the Windward islands and some other British islands. Of the Dutch West Indies, besides Curaçoa and Buen Ayre, St. Martin, in the Leeward islands, produces a great deal from lagoons in the southern part, and it is the principal export of Philisburg, the Dutch capital. On the N. coast of Cuba are extensive lagoons, from which in dry years large quantities are obtained. In Hayti there is a deposit of rock salt on the S. side of the island, said to form a mountain 6 m. long, ½ m. broad, and 400 to 500 ft. high. The crude salt contains 96.79 per cent. of pure sodium chloride. In Porto Rico are two salines formerly worked by the government, which, as well as the monopoly of the introduction of either Spanish or foreign salt into the island, were sold to private parties in 1851. Cuba and Porto Rico, however, draw most of their supply from Spain, and some from England.—In Central America are many salt springs, and on the Pacific coast large quantities are made from sea water. In Mexico, the state of Oajaca has salines extending for 30 or 40 leagues along the Pacific, which are very valuable and supply the whole interior of the state. These formerly belonged to the government, but were sold by Santa Anna to the family of Echeverria for $300,000. In Tamaulipas salt is produced from a chain of lagoons on the coast divided by the Rio Grande from the celebrated salt lake near Brownsville in Texas.
- 721VOL. XIV.—37
