Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/344

326 gravity is 1·170, distilled water being 1·000; the North Atlantic, between latitude 25° N. and longitude 52° W. (G.), 1·020; and the Dead Sea, at 60° Fahrenheit, from 1·22742 to 1·130. The vulgar estimate of its saltness is exaggerated. I have heard at Salt Lake City of one bucket of saline matter being produced by the evaporation of three; and that meat can be salted, and corned beef converted into junk, after twelve or fourteen hours in the natural unevaporated brine. It is used without preparation by the citizens, who have not adopted the precautions recommended by Dr. Gale. It is collected by boys, shoveled into carts at the points of the beach where the winds dash up the waves—forming a regular wind-tide—and is sold in retail at half a cent per pound, or two shillings per hundred pounds. The original basin of geological ages was, doubtless, as the shells have proved, fresh water. The saline substances are brought down by rain, which washes the soil and percolates through the rocky ledges, and by the rivers, which are generally estimated to contain from ten to one hundred grains of salt per gallon, and here probably more, owing to the abundance of soda. The evaporation is, of course, nearly pure, containing but very minute traces of salts.

It has been generally stated that the water is fatal to organic life. The fish brought down the rivers perish at once in the concentrated brine; but, according to the people, there is a univalve, like a periwinkle, found at certain seasons within the influence of its saline waves; and I observed, floating near the margin, delicate moss-like algæ. Governor Cumming mentioned his having seen a leaf, of a few inches in length, lined with a web, which shelters a vermicular animal, of reddish color, and about the length of the last joint of the little finger. Near the shore, also, muci-