Salt spring

“ The salt rock in the earth beneath impregnates the springs with such an intensity of brine that eighty per cent. of fresh water has to be added before the saline mixture can be medicinally employed as a bath. If you take a glass of the water as it proceeds from the spring, and put a little salt in it, the salt will not dissolve, the water is already saturated. ”

“ The great beds of salt, deep in the earth, are usually accumulations left there by water that is drawn from brine lakes, from which the liberated water often escaped as pure spring water at the surface of the earth. It does not escape by evaporation, at least not until it reaches the earth's surface. ”

“ When it receded, or the ground upheaved, vast subterranean reservoirs of salt water were left, and now, when the rain sinks down into these full reservoirs a portion of the salt water is forced to the surface, which makes the salt springs that are scattered over this part of the country. It is a process that is going on continually. ”

“ I wish (so he goes on) we had a full Accompt of our Salt-Springs at Droyt-wych near Worcester, and at Nant-wych in Cheshire (what other Salt-Springs we have in England, I know not:) {360}It should be inquired, at what distance they are from the Seas, or from Salt-fluxes, from Hills, and how deep in the Vales? What the weight? Whether in droughts or long Frosts the proportion of Salt or weight increaseth? Whether the Earth near the Springs, or in their passage hath any peculiar ferment, or produceth a blackishness, if it rests, after it is well drained. ”

“ My informant expressed the opinion that, at the time the aborigines used the waters, the spring had its outlet at or near the bed-rock, and had since gradually filled by surface-washings, just as the well in the west ravine has been filled since my first visit, and is now a cattle-tramped salt-swamp.
The present outlet of the spring is not over six or eight feet above low water of the Saline River, and the character of its bed precludes the possibility of its ever having been on a lower level ”

“ The climate has been considered unhealthy to new settlers; but it is not more so than other new countries.
Minerals.—There are quantities of iron, lead, coal, salt, and, it is asserted by some, silver. There are many salt and sulphur springs. On the Arkansas river, beyond the limits of the Territory proper, is a section of country called the salt prairie, which, according to good authority, is covered for many miles, from four to six inches deep, with pure white salt. In the Hot Spring country, are the famous hot springs, much resorted to by persons of chronic and paralytic diseases. ”

“ The earth after rain, and particularly in spring and summer, teems with almost reanimated life, both with that which is harmless and with that which is hurtful, so that the Cheshire custom is one which cannot be too highly recommended, for when the soil is saturated with moisture, a soluble salt like the chloride of sodium, already in a state of solution, sinks in more rapidly, and permeates it more thoroughly than if it were merely sprinkled over the surface ”

“ Each summer it is flooded with salt water when the sea is brought in by strong southwesterly monsoon winds, and the climate during the remainder of the year is hot and dry. By the evaporation of sea water the soil is thus left so salty that no vegetation can grow upon it, and in places beds of salt several feet in thickness have accumulated. Under like conditions salt beds of great thickness have been formed in the past and are now found buried among the deposits of ancient deltas. ”

“ By the great majority of land animals salt is evidently an article much relished, for in those districts where salt springs and lakes are prevalent, many quadrupeds and birds are invariably to be seen.50 They frequent these spots in great numbers, and very seldom migrate to those districts which are deficient in salt, or, if they do, very speedily return ”

“ We have salt, or the chloride of sodium, presented to us in six different conditions, viz.: sea or salt water, salt or brine springs, salt lakes, salt mines, mountain or fossil or rock salt, and salt marshes. The characteristics of salt are just the same fundamentally, whether we extract it by evaporation from sea-water or salt lakes; whether we obtain it from salt-springs; whether we dig it out of the earth or by the excavation of salt mountains ”

“ The water is drawn up particle by particle, not in masses; and the sun’s rays have no power to lift the ocean-salt, which remains behind, floating still in the sea.
But when a strong wind lashes the surface into waves, and rends the tops of billows into fine spray, it often carries a great deal of salt to a distance. We know how salt may be tasted on the lips miles inland, and how windows near the coast become encrusted with it in stormy weather. Moving air, like moving water, can carry weight ”

“ Were the salts of the sea lighter instead of heavier than the water, they would, as they feed the winds with moisture for the cloud and the rain, remain at its surface, and become more niggardly in their supplies, and finally the winds would howl over the salt-covered sea in very emptiness, and, instead of cool and refreshing sea-breezes to fan the invalid and nourish the plants, we should have the gentle trade-winds coming from the sea in fitful blasts of parched, and thirsty, and blighting air. ”

“ In arid regions, where the rainfall is often less than 10 ins. in the year, the action of winds in the transport of sand and dust is more in evidence than that of rivers, and the effects of evaporation greater than of precipitation. Salt and bitter lakes prevail in these regions. Many salt lakes, such as the Dead Sea and the Great Salt Lake, are descended from fresh-water ancestors, while others, like the Caspian and Aral Seas, are isolated portions of the ocean. Lakes of the first group have usually become salt through a decrease in the rainfall of the region in which they occur. ”

“ But the salt water, which has lost so much of its freshness by evaporation, becomes salter, and therefore heavier. The lighter water at the Straits can not balance the heavier water at the Isthmus, and the colder and salter, and therefore heavier water, must either run out as an under current, or it must deposit its surplus salt in the shape of crystals, and thus gradually make the bottom of the Red Sea a salt-bed, or it must abstract all the salt from the ocean to make the Red Sea brine — and we know that neither the one process nor the other is going on. ”

“ For instance: when we come to an arm of the sea, as the Red Sea (§ 376) , upon which it never rains, and from which the atmosphere is continually abstracting, by evaporation, fresh water from the salt, we may naturally expect to find a greater proportion of salt in the sea water that remains than we do near the mouth of some great river, as the Amazon, or in the regions of constant precipitation, or in other parts, as on the polar side of 40° in the North Atlantic, where it rains more than it evaporates. ”

“ To creep within one of these gorse-temples when illumined by the sun, is to enjoy an ecstasy both of colour and of scent.
With the exception of the furze, the Downland flowers are mostly low of stature, as befits their exposed situation, a small but free people inhabiting the wind-swept slopes and coombes, and well requiting the friendship of those who visit them in their fastnesses. One of the earliest and most welcome is the spring whitlow-grass, which abounds on ant-hills high up on the ridges, forming a dense growth like soft down on the earth's cheek. ”

“ It cannot be doubted that there is an immense amount of wasteful flower-picking by children, and also by persons who are old enough to know better. Nothing is commoner, in Spring, than to see piles of freshly gathered hyacinths or cowslips abandoned by the roadside; and many other flowers share the same fate, including, as I have noticed, the beautiful green-winged meadow orchis. ”

“ At the approach of winter the latter solidifies again but not as the water in our inland lakes from the top but from the bottom, as ordinary sea-water possesses its greatest density below the freezing point while the opposite is true of fresh water. The consequence is that the ice foundation grows upward and as the surface water becomes increasingly shallow it is turned into a concentrated salt solution. With a further drop in temperature the ice formation is accompanied by crystallization of the salts. ”

“ Yet in the case of the Red Sea, and all such natural salt-pans, as that and other rainless portions of the sea may be called, there is, on account of currents which are continually bearing away the water that has given off its vapours and bringing forward that which is less concentrated as to brine, a moderate degree of saltness which its waters cannot exceed. We moreover find that, though the constituents of sea water, like those of the atmosphere, are not for every place invariably the same as to their proportions, yet they are the same, or nearly the same, as to their character. ”

“ The amount of SALT in the ocean is a circumstance which geologists have not, I think, sufficiently considered. This salt, if precipitated, would, it is believed, yield a solid range of mountains equal to that of the entire Himalaya. Now, mighty rivers run into the sea, as those of La Plata, Amazons, Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Orinoko, and many others; but none of these rivers are salt; they are enormous bodies of fresh water. How, then, does the ocean maintain everywhere its saline character unimpaired? ”

“ The only assumption required to enable us to explain a great thickness of salt in such as area is, the continuance, for an indefinite period, of a subsiding movement, the country preserving all the time a general approach to horizontality. Pure salt could only be formed in the central parts of basins, where no sand could be drifted by the wind, or sediment be brought by currents. Should the sinking of the ground be accelerated, so as to let in the sea freely, and deepen the water, a temporary suspension of the precipitation of salt would be the only result. ”

“ During the summer, for long months together, the sky remains inexorably blue while the temperature is hot and parching. In winter, clouds are almost as rare; but winds often play violently over the great tracts of unbroken country. When these blow from the south they soon lose their warmth and humidity at the contact of a soil which, but a short while ago, was at the bottom of the sea, and is, therefore, in many places still strongly impregnated with salt which acts as a refrigerant. ”

“ For a time, a cycle of dry seasons prevailed; a great change occurred, and a bed of rock-salt, 84 ft. in thickness, was deposited. In other parts, the bed of rock-salt varies from 80 ft. to over 100 ft. in thickness, none of which is perfectly pure, and not more than 20 ft. of it is sufficiently pure to be of commercial use. The greatly changed seasons are indicated by these formations. A portion near the bottom, containing less clay, shows a less copious or less protracted rainfall, and these periods were followed by wet seasons and the presence of much clay. ”

“ Not until the various initial obstacles have been overcome can one appreciate the true "call of the wild," the full pleasures of the chase. When we have learnt not only what plants are to be looked for, but those two essential conditions, the when and the where; the rule of season and of soil; the flowers that bloom in spring, in summer, or in autumn; the flowers that grow by shore, meadow, bog, river, or mountain; on chalk, limestone, sand, or clay—then the quest becomes more effective, and each [Pg 14] successive season will add materially to our widening circle of acquaintance. ”

“ Every shower of rain creates a certain amount of mud or sand, and every brook and stream running into the salt lakes during the rainy season brings in a certain quantity of the same material. The mud represents the wet season of the year, and the salt the dry season. The geological conditions must have been the same when salt was deposited in Cheshire, and with the instances of modern salt-forming regions before us, and the strata of the Cheshire salt country to guide us, it must be concluded that the genesis of rock-salt, modified by local circumstances, must have been the same in every case. ”

“ In spite of the heat we have had rain enough to keep the country beautiful, and my salt marshes have been in their glory. The salt grass is to other grass like fur compared with hair, and the color of the ‘black grass,’ and even its texture at the right distance remind one of sable. ”

“ There is a difference, not universally well understood, between the effects on climate incident to their being fresh or salt. Were the lakes salt, like the Caspian, they would give to their region a warmer temperature; the winters, latitude remaining the same, would be milder, the summers more sultry. This arises simply from the effects of evaporation: fresh water, according to the observations of Professor Chapman at Montreal, evaporates fester than salt, carrying off more heat. ”

“ The salt lies as a more or less thick layer on the ground, filling the hollows between the bushes so that they look like pools covered with ice. Salt covers the whole land, keeping the mud beneath permanently moist, adhering firmly to the ground, and hardly separable from it. Great balls of salt and mud are raised by the traveller’s feet and the horses’ hoofs at every step, just as if the ground were covered with slushy snow. ”