The Purity Of The Patagonian Salt,
Or Absence From It Of Those Other Saline Bodies Found In All
Sea-Water,
Is the only assignable cause for this inferiority:
a conclusion which no one, I think, would have suspected,
but which
Is supported by the fact lately ascertained, [3]
that those salts answer best for preserving cheese which
contain most of the deliquescent chlorides.
The border of this lake is formed of mud: and in this
numerous large crystals of gypsum, some of which are three
inches long, lie embedded; whilst on the surface others of
sulphate of soda lie scattered about. The Gauchos call the
former the "Padre del sal," and the latter the "Madre;"
they state that these progenitive salts always occur on the
borders of the salinas, when the water begins to evaporate.
The mud is black, and has a fetid odour. I could not at first
imagine the cause of this, but I afterwards perceived that the
froth which the wind drifted on shore was coloured green,
as if by confervae; I attempted to carry home some of this
green matter, but from an accident failed. Parts of the lake
seen from a short distance appeared of a reddish colour, and
this perhaps was owing to some infusorial animalcula. The
mud in many places was thrown up by numbers of some kind
of worm, or annelidous animal. How surprising it is that
any creatures should be able to exist in brine, and that they
should be crawling among crystals of sulphate of soda and
lime! And what becomes of these worms when, during the
long summer, the surface is hardened into a solid layer of
salt? Flamingoes in considerable numbers inhabit this lake,
and breed here, throughout Patagonia, in Northern Chile,
and at the Galapagos Islands, I met with these birds wherever
there were lakes of brine. I saw them here wading
about in search of food - probably for the worms which burrow
in the mud; and these latter probably feed on infusoria or
confervae. Thus we have a little living world within itself
adapted to these inland lakes of brine. A minute crustaceous
animal (Cancer salinus) is said [4] to live in countless numbers
in the brine-pans at Lymington: but only in those in which
the fluid has attained, from evaporation, considerable
strength - namely, about a quarter of a pound of salt to a
pint of water. Well may we affirm that every part of the
world is habitable! Whether lakes of brine, or those
subterranean ones hidden beneath volcanic mountains - warm
mineral springs - the wide expanse and depths of the ocean
- the upper regions of the atmosphere, and even the surface
of perpetual snow - all support organic beings.
To the northward of the Rio Negro, between it and the
inhabited country near Buenos Ayres, the Spaniards have
only one small settlement, recently established at Bahia
Blanca. The distance in a straight line to Buenos Ayres is
very nearly five hundred British miles. The wandering
tribes of horse Indians, which have always occupied the
greater part of this country, having of late much harassed
the outlying estancias, the government at Buenos Ayres
equipped some time since an army under the command of
General Rosas for the purpose of exterminating them.
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