In what countries is Salt generally found?
This substance, so necessary to the comfort of mankind, is widely distributed over the face of the earth, and nothing, except, perhaps, the air we breathe, is more easily placed within our reach. The ocean is an exhaustless store-house of this valuable article. Those nations of the earth which are placed at a distance from the sea, find themselves provided with magazines of salt, either in solid masses, or dissolved in the waters of inland lakes, or issuing from the solid rocks in springs of brine. At Salina, Syracuse, and other places in Onondaga Co., New York, salt springs are remarkably abundant, and yield annually several millions of bushels; immense quantities are also obtained from the salt-wells on the Great and Little Kanawha, and other places in Western Virginia; it is also extensively manufactured in the western part of Pennsylvania, and throughout the Western States.
Name the countries most noted for mines of Salt.
Poland, Upper Hungary, and the mountains of Catalonia, have extensive salt mines; those in the village of Wieliczca, in Poland, about five leagues from Cracow, are of a surprising depth and size. In the interior of Hindostan, there is a remarkable salt lake; and in several parts of the globe there are spots of ground impregnated entirely with this substance: an island of the East Indies contains a singular kind of fossil, or native dry salt; the soil there is in general very fruitful, but in certain parts of the island, there are spots of ground entirely barren, without the appearance of anything vegetable upon them; these spots taste very much of salt, and abound with it in such quantities, as to supply not only the whole island, but the greater part of the adjacent continent. In Utah Territory, especially in the neighborhood of the Mormon city, at the Great Salt Lake, are found extensive plains thus impregnated with salt, which is procured in great abundance.
Fossil, the remains of minerals or shells dug from the earth.
Impregnated, filled, saturated.
Catalonia, a considerable province of Spain, situated to the north-east.
Adjacent, adjoining, lying near, or contiguous.
To what use did the ancient inhabitants of Africa and Arabia put this substance?
The large slabs of rock salt, with which their country abounds, were employed by them instead of stones, in building their dwellings, the pieces being easily cemented together by sprinkling the joints with water, which, melting the parts of the two surfaces that opposed each other, formed the whole, when dry, into one solid block.