Nature's Miracles, Volume 1

ut it is a very usual thing for us to live and move in the presence of things that are very common to our everyd

ll peoples in all ages seem to have used salt, and reference to it is made in the earliest histories. Travelers tell us that savage tribes, wherever they exist, are as much addicted to the use of salt as civilized people.

at the taste for salt is a natural craving. In any event, whether it is a natural or an artificial taste, it has become an article of the greatest importance in the preparation of food, as well as on account of its use in the arts. Salt i

cale the destructive properties of the chlorine discharged into the air was such that all vegetation was killed for some distance around the manufactory. This came to be such a nuisance that the manufacturers were either co

cases the rock salt is mined, when it has to be purified for commercial purposes. The common mode of obtaining salt, however, is by pumping the solution from these great be

such a form as to make a lump of ice of given dimensions lighter than the same dimensions of water would be. Salt in crystallizing does not follow the s

salt for domestic purposes is by the process of evaporation from brine that has been pumped from salt wells. The quality of the salt is determined largely by the temperature at the time of evaporating the water from it. Ordinary coarse salt, such as is used for preserving meat or fish, is made at a temperature of about 110 degrees; what is known as common salt is made at a temperature of about 175 degrees; while common fi

ay as compared with the processes that prevailed in the days before the advent of electricity in large volume, such as is produced by the power of Niagara Falls. It is curious to note that a substance so useful and so harmless as common salt sh

y saline; 300 gallons of sea water will produce a bushel of salt. Undoubtedly beds of salt are also formed by inland lakes, such as the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Only about 2.7 per cent. of ocean water is salt, while the water of the Great Salt Lake of

rocess of evaporation pure water is being constantly carried off, leaving the salt behind. It is easy to see that if this process is kept up long enoug

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