“‘Worse still! I don’t think we stand in need of either. Do we, Harry?’
“‘Not a bit of it,’ responded Harry, also grinning at the thought of these well-known specifics. ‘I would rather it should turn out saltpetre and sulphur. Then we could make lots of gunpowder.’
“Harry was a great shot—as we have seen—and one of his fears was, that our stock of powder would run out.
“‘Do not wish for that, Harry,’ said his mother. ‘Gunpowder we can do very well without. Let us hope for something more necessary to us at present.’
“With such-like conversation we passed the time, while we watched the steaming kettle with feelings of anxious expectation.
“For myself, I had some reliance upon a fact which I had observed years before, and had regarded as singular. It was this. I believe the Creator has so disposed it, that salt, so essential to animal life, is to be found in all parts of the globe, either in rocks, springs, standing lakes, incrustations, or in the ocean itself. No part of the earth, of great extent, is without it; and I had noticed in the interior territories of the American continent—where the sea is too distant to be visited by animals—that Nature has provided numerous salt springs, or ‘licks,’ as they are termed in the language of the country. These springs from time immemorial have been the meeting-places of the wild creatures of the forest and prairie, who resort thither to drink their waters, or lick the saline soil through which these waters run. Hence their common name of ‘licks.’ Here, then, was a valley whose four-footed inhabitants never roamed beyond its borders. I felt confident that Nature had provided for their wants and cravings by giving them everything necessary to their existence, and, among other necessities, that one which we were now in search of ourselves—salt. In other words, but that this was a salt spring, or there existed some other such in the valley, these creatures would not have been found within it. I took the opportunity to point out this theory to my boys, as well as to show them—what I myself clearly recognised in it—the hand of the Creator. It rendered them confident that, when we had evaporated our water, we should get salt for our pains.
“‘Papa,’ inquired Frank, who was a great naturalist, ‘I should like to know what makes this little rivulet run salt water.’
“‘No doubt,’ I replied, ‘the water you see gushing forth has just been passing through vast beds or rock-salt, and has become impregnated with it.’
“‘Rock-salt! and is the salt we use found in rocks?’
“‘Not all of it, though great quantities are. There are beds of rock-salt found in many countries—in England, and the East Indies, in Russia, and Hungary, and Spain; and it has also been discovered in vast quantities in this very Desert we are now dwelling in. These beds of rock-salt, when worked to supply salt, are called salt-mines. The most celebrated are in Poland, near the city of Cracow. These have been worked for seven hundred years; and there is enough left in them to supply all the world for many centuries yet to come. These mines are said to be very beautiful—lit up, as they are, by numerous lamps. The rock has been excavated by the miners into all sorts of shapes. Houses, chapels, columns, obelisks, and many other ornamental forms of buildings, have been made; and these, when illuminated by lamps and torches, appear as splendid and brilliant as the palaces of Aladdin.’