Thus We Have A Little Living World Within Itself
Adapted To These Inland Lakes Of Brine.
A minute crustaceous
animal (Cancer salinus) is said [4] to live in countless numbers
in the brine-pans at Lymington:
But only in those in which
the fluid has attained, from evaporation, considerable
strength - namely, about a quarter of a pound of salt to a
pint of water. Well may we affirm that every part of the
world is habitable! Whether lakes of brine, or those
subterranean ones hidden beneath volcanic mountains - warm
mineral springs - the wide expanse and depths of the ocean
- the upper regions of the atmosphere, and even the surface
of perpetual snow - all support organic beings.
To the northward of the Rio Negro, between it and the
inhabited country near Buenos Ayres, the Spaniards have
only one small settlement, recently established at Bahia
Blanca. The distance in a straight line to Buenos Ayres is
very nearly five hundred British miles. The wandering
tribes of horse Indians, which have always occupied the
greater part of this country, having of late much harassed
the outlying estancias, the government at Buenos Ayres
equipped some time since an army under the command of
General Rosas for the purpose of exterminating them. The
troops were now encamped on the banks of the Colorado;
a river lying about eighty miles northward of the Rio Negro
When General Rosas left Buenos Ayres he struck in a direct
line across the unexplored plains: and as the country was
thus pretty well cleared of Indians, he left behind him, at
wide intervals, a small party of soldiers with a troop of
horses (a posta), so as to be enabled to keep up a communication
with the capital.
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