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of the root is carefully separated, and cleared of all the adherent earth; a proportionate quantity of water is poured on, and it is boiled about an hour, when the fluid is carefully filtered through a white cloth; it is then exposed to the fire again and boiled down to nearly the consistence of an extract; in this state it much resembles a thick syrup. The following spices, having been prepared as above described, are added in the same proportion as to the Antshar; viz. Kæmpferia Galanga, (Kontshur,) Soonty, &c. Dshey, for common onion, garlic, and black pepper.

The expressed juice of these is poured into the vessel, which is once more exposed to the fire a few minutes, when the preparation is complete. The Oopas of both kinds must be preserved in very close vessels.

VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS OF MUD AND SALT IN THE 1SLAND OF JAVA.

(By T. S. Goad, Esq. of the Hon. Com

pany's Bengal Civil Service.)

Having received an extraordinary account of a natural phenomenon in the Plains of Grobogan, fifty pals or miles N. E. of Solo, a party, of which I was one, set off from Solo on the 8th of September, 1815, to examine it.

On approaching the village of Kuhoo, we saw, between two trees in a plain, an appearance like the surf breaking over rocks, with a strong spray falling to leeward. The spot was completely surrounded by huts for the

manufacture of salt, and at a distance looked like a large village. Alighting we went to the Bludogs, as the Javanese call them. They are situated in the village of Kuhoo, and by Europeans are called by that name. We found them to be on an elevated plain of mud, about two miles in circumference, in the centre of which immense bodies of salt mud were thrown up to the height of from ten to fifteen feet, in the form of large globes, which, bursting, emitted volumes of dense white smoke. These large globes or bubbles, of which there were two, continued throwing up and bursting seven or eight times in a minute by the watch. At times they throw up two or three tons of mud. We got to leeward of the smoke, and found it to smell like the washing of a gun-barrel. As the globes burst, they threw the mud out from the centre, with a pretty loud noise, occasioned by the falling of the mud upon that which surrounded it, and of which the plain is composed. It was difficult and dangerous to approach the large globes or bubbles, as the ground was all a quagmire, except where the surface of the mud had become hardened by the sun; upon this we approached cautiously to within fifty yards of the largest bubble, or mud-pudding, as it might very properly be called, for it was of the consistency of a custard-pudding, and of very considerable diameter; here and there, where the foot accidentally rested on a spot not sufficiently hardened to bear, it sunk, to the no small distress of the walker.

We

We also got close to a small globe or bubble (the plain was full of them of different sizes) and observed it closely for some time. It appeared to heave and swell, and when the internal air had raised it to some height, it burst and fell down in concentric circles, in which shape it remained quiet until a sufficient quantity of air was again formed internally to raise and burst another bubble. This continued at intervals from about one-half to two minutes. From various other parts of the quagmire round the large globes or bubbles, there were occasion ally small quantities of mud shot up like rockets to the height of twenty or thirty feet, and accompanied by smoke. This was in parts where the mud was of too stiff a consistency to rise in globes or bubbles. The mud at all the places we came near was cold on the surface, but we were told it was warm beneath. The water which drains from the mud is collected by the Javanese, and by being exposed in the hollows of split bamboos to the rays of the sun, deposits crystals of salt. The salt thus made is reserved exclusively for the Emperor of Solo. In dry weather it yields thirty dudjins of one hundred catties each, every month, but in wet or cloudy weather less.

In the afternoon we rode to a place in a forest called Ramsam, to view a salt lake, a mud hillock, and various boiling or rather bub-bling pools. The lake was about half a mile in circumference, of a dirty looking water, boiling up all over in gurgling bodies, but more particularly in the centre, which appeared like a strong spring;

the water was quite cold, and tasted bitter, salt, and sour, and had an offensive smell. About thirty yards from the lake stood the mud hillock, which was about fifteen feet high from the level of the earth. The diameter of its base was about twenty-five yards, and its top about eight feet and in form an exact cone. The top is open, and the interior keeps constantly working and heaving up mud in globular forms, like the Bludugs. The hillock is entirely formed of mud which has flowed out of the top; every rise of the mud was accompanied by a rumbling noise from the bottom of the hillock, which was distinctly heard for some seconds before the bubbles burst. The outside of the hillock was quite firm. We stood on the edge of the opening and sounded it, and found it to be eleven fathoms deep. The mud was more liquid than at the Bludugs, and no smoke was emitted from the lake, hillock, or pools.

Close to the foot of the hillock was a small pool of the same water as the lake which appeared exactly like a pot of water boiling violently; it was shallow, except in the centre, into which we thrust a stick twelve feet long, but found no bottom. The hole not being perpendicular we could not sound it with a line,

About two hundred yards from the lake were several large pools or springs, two of which were eight and ten feet in diameter. They were like the small pool, but boiled more violently, and smelt excessively. The ground around them was hot to the feet, and the air which issued from

them

them quite hot, so that it was most probably inflammable; but we did not ascertain this. We heard the boiling thirty yards before we came to the pools, resembling in noise a water-fall. The pools did not overflow; of course the bubbling was occasioned by the rising of air alone. The water of one of the pools appeared to contain a mixture of earth and lime, and from the taste to be combined with alkali. The water of the Bludugs and the lake is used medicinally by the Javanese, and cattle drinking of the water are poisoned.

Some Observations on the Salt Mines of Cardona, made during a Tour in Spain, in the Summer of 1814. By Thomas Stewart Traill, M. D. M. G. S.

soon discovered to consist of one vast mass of salt. The sides and bottom of the valley are composed of reddish brown clay, forming a thick bed, from which here and there large imbedded masses of rock salt project in the manner of more ordinary rocks; especially along the winding ascent which leads up to the town of Cardona. The summits of the ridges which bound the valley on each side, are formed of a yellowish grey sandstone of a coarse texture, and containing many scales of grey mica.

The great body of the salt forms a rugged precipice, which is reckoned between 400 and 500 feet in height at the upper extremity of the valley, and is covered by a thick bed of the clay above mentioned.

The precipitous form is partly owing to the manner in which

(From Transactions of the Geological So- the mine has been wrought for a

ciety, Vol. III.)

These celebrated mines occupy the head of a small valley in the immediate vicinity of Cardona, a town in the province of Catalonia.

This valley extends about half a mile in length, from the river Cardonero to the mines, in a direction from east-south-east to west-north-west. Its north-western side is bounded by a very steep and lofty ridge, the summit of which is crowned by the town and castle of Cardona. The opposite boundary is somewhat less elevated; but both sides are considerably higher than the upper surface of the fossil salt. On entering this valley, the attention is arrested by bold cliffs of a greyish white colour, which are

series of ages. There is no excavation; but the salt has been procured by working down perpendicularly as in an open quarry. The lowest part of the present works has a solid floor of pure salt which is not above the level of the bottom of the valley, where no salt is found; but the real depth of the bed of salt has never yet been ascertained. The upper surface of the salt is not level; but appears irregularly elevated, according to the general outline of the hill in which it occurs.

[blocks in formation]

` surrounding hills, it would seem more correct to consider it as a mass or bed of salt filling up a valley, than as constituting a mountain, which according to some authors* is a league in circumference. These dimensions could only be obtained by considering the neighbouring heights as formed of this mineral; a supposition not countenanced by, my personal observation, nor by the best information which I. could collect on the spot.

The surfaces of the salt precipice which have been long exposed to the weather are not smooth, but cut into innumerable shallow channels, running in a tortuous manner, and divided from each other by thin edges, often so sharp as to cut the hands like broken glass. The channelled surface is evidently produced by the action of the winter rains, which have given the whole a striking resemblance to the surface of a mass of ice, which had been partially thawed and again frozen.

The general colour of the exposed surface is greyish white, with here and there a tinge of pale reddish brown, from the colouring matter of the superincumbent bed of clay. Towards the extremities of the mass of salt, extremely thin layers of a pure and plastic clay, are insinuated between layers of salt, so as to give it the waved delineations which often occur in some species of calcsniter. The general mass of salt is however of the greatest

Bowles' Introduction a la Historia Natural de Espana; Dillon who translates him, Laborde, Itineraire descriptif, &c.

purity; and in order to be converted into snow white culinary salt requires no other process but grinding. The greyish hue of the external surface is owing to the rain penetrating a portion of the salt, and by diminishing its opacity, depriving it of the whiteness which the fresh fracture generally presents. At the period of my visit the surface of this immense mass was properly dry, and in some places, where water had most recently flowed, was covered with a snow white efflorescence. This circumstance, as well as the sharpness of the edges above mentioned, shew the little hygrometric water in the atmosphere of that country, and the general purity of the salt from earthy muriates.

The fracture of the salt is highly crystalline, and usually exhibits large granular distinct concretions, which give it sometimes the appearance of a breccia, or of containing imbedded crystals.

A perennial brine spring flows at the foot of the great precipice, and affords a strong proof of the little effect of water on this very compact salt. The aperture through which the stream has issued, for many years, is not wider externally than two feet, and suddenly contracts to a few inches; while the channel worn in a solid floor of salt, through which the stream has long flowed, is not a foot in depth. This is partly to be ascribed to the water being saturated with salt; but, during the rainy season, the stream is much augmented, and thus cannot be supposed so highly charged with saline matter. Notwithstanding

withstanding this, neither the solvent, nor mechanical effects of the spring seem to have much effect on the fossil salt of Cardona. The waters of this spring flow into the Cardonero, leaving in the valley a thick scaly crust of salt, resembling the ice formed around our brooks in similar situations. During the rainy season, it is asserted, that the stream carries down such quantities of salt into the Cardonero, as to kill the fish in that river.* This as sertion rests upon the authority of Bowles, an able naturalist; but he undoubtedly was led into error when he asserted, that the waters of the Cardonero at some leagues below the mines yield no trace of salt from which he inferred, that salt may, by motion, be converted into earthy matter. At Manresa, which is about twenty miles below Cardona, I tested the water of the Cardonero by nitrate of silver, which indicated the presence of an unusually large portion of muriate of soda. The taste of the brine spring at Cardona is intensely saline; and the hand immersed in it, on being exposed to the air is instantly covered with a film of salt. The salt rock near its source is most elegantly veined with delicate waved delineations of an ochre yellow colour.

The clay which covers the bed of salt at Cardona, and forms the sides of the valley, exactly resembles the clay found in the salt district of Cheshire, having when dry some resemblance to shale,

Introduccion à la Historia Natural y à la Geografia Fisica de Espana, por Don Guillermo Bowles. Madrid, 1775.

but becoming plastic when moistened. It is remarkably pure, and free from intermixture, except of salt; large masses of which are occasionally imbedded in it.

No fibrous salt was to be observed at Cardona; nor did I discover the slightest trace of gypsum in that neighbourhood; a remark which was also made by Bowles. On the soil near the town, a small quantity of a saline efflorescence was however observed, which had the taste of sulphate of soda; but the loss of the specimen I collected, has prevented a more accurate investigation of its properties.

The salt mine of Cardona is wrought like an open quarry with pickaxes and wedges, by which the mineral is raised in considerable tabular masses. The part at present wrought presents an extensive horizontal floor of pure rock salt; the level of which is a little lower than the foot of the great salt precipice. An enormous mass of the same mineral lies between this precipice and the present mine, the removal of which will, in time, render the appearance of this interesting spot still more magnificent; for then the vast front of the rock salt bed will at once strike the eye from the lowest part of the mine.

Like every other public works in Spain, the mines of Cardona are in a languid state from the effects of the late war, which has desolated the peninsula. Only 100 labourers are at present employed in quarrying the salt, and in wheeling it to the receiving house. Over these, eight overseers are appointed, who do duty

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