their huibands to bring home a quantity of fnowy fait for
the table.
In endeavouring to account for the great accumulation of
pure chryftallized fait at the bottom o f this lake, I ihould have
conceived the following explanation fufficiently fatisfa£tory,
had not fome local circumftances feemed to militate ftrongly
againft it. The water of the fea on the coaft o f Africa contains
a very high proportion of fait. During the ftrong fouth-eaft
winds of fummer, the fpray of the fea is carried to a very confi-
derable extent into the country in the ihape o f a thick mift.
The powerful and combined effe£ts of the dry wind and the
fun carry on a rapid evaporation of the aqueous part of the
mift, and o f courfe a difengagement of the faline particles:
thefe, in their fall, are received on the ground or on the foliage
o f the fhrubbery. When the rains commence they are again
taken up in folution and carried into the fait pan, towards
which the country on every fide inclines. The quantity of fait
thus feparated from the fea, and borne upon the land, is much
more confiderable than at firft thought it might feem to be. At
the diftance o f feveral miles from the fea-coaft, the air, in walking
againft the wind, is perceptibly faline to the lips. It leaves
a damp feel upon the clothes, and gives to them alfo a faline
tafte. The oftrich feather I wore in my hat always hung in
feparate threads when near the fea-coaft in a fouth-eaft wind,
and recovered itfelf immediately when the wind ihifted. In
ihort, the air becomes fo .much obfcured with the faline particles
that objedts can only be diftinguiihed through it at very
ihort diftances. Thefe winds prevailing for feven or eight
months
months in the year, the mind can eafily conceive that, in the
lapfe o f ages, the quantity of fait carried upon the furrounding
country, and wafted annually from thence into the common
refervoir, might have accumulated to the prefent bulk.
Were this, however, actually the cafe, it would naturally
follow that all the refervoirs of water in the proximity of this
fea-coaft ihould contain, more or leis, a portion of fait. Moft
of them in fait do fo. Between the one in queftion and the
fea, a diftance of fix miles, there are three other fait lakes, two
of which are on a plain within a mile of the ftrand. None of
thefe, however, depofit a body o f fait except in very dry fum-
mers when the greateft part of the water is evaporated. One
is called the Red Salt pan, the chryftals of fait produced in it
being always tinged o f a ruby color with iron. This lake is
about twice the fize of that above defcribed. All thefe ihould
feem to favor the fuppofition of the fait being brought from the
fea, were it not that clofe to the fide of the lake that produces
the greateft quantity is a ftagnant pool or valley, the water o f
which is perfe&ly freih. Another ftrong argument againft the
hypothefis above affirmed is the circumftance o f our having dif-
covered, on a future journey, feveral fait pans of the fame kind
behind the Snowy mountains, at the diftance o f two hundred
miles from the fea-coaft, and on an elevation that could not be
lefs than five or fix thoufand feet. The foil too on all fides o f
the Zwart Kop’s fait pan was deep vegetable earth, in fome
places red and in others black, refting upon a bed o f clay, and
without having the fmalleft veftige of fait in its compofition.
That fait in a foil was inimical to and deftruiftive o f vegetation