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Tb« Soap Mlnea of Nevada.fn Nevada are several deposits of mineral soap. One of these lias been worked for three or four years. The soap is sometimes made up into cakes as it romes from the mine, but usually it is toned down by admixture with variotu other soaps. In Dakota and Wyoming are also deposits of natural soap. In regions where soda, borax and mineral oils abound it is only necessary to bring these ingredients together ancj a soap mine is the result. Hot springs assist materially in uniting and concentrating the materials provided by nature. The soap found about hot springs is, therefore, generally harder and more perfect tlrnn that producod in the dry way in and about the basins of extinct lakes.The waters of Owens and Mono lakes are so thoroughly saturated with borax and soda in solution that the addition of any oleaginous matter produces soap. The waters of Mono lake produce myriads of grubs (which aftern time become flies) which are washed ashore, and hi someSlaces form beaches a foot or two in epth. The oily mutter contained hi the grubs or flies, uniting with the alkali in the water of the lako, forms a deposit of 6oapnn inch or two in thickness each year. Thus, in the course of ages, a deposit of natural soap of great depth has been built upon tho east side of tho alkali lakes, whero tho worms arc stranded-prevailing winds being from tho west. Til esc particular grubs aro tho only living things found in the waters of Mono and Owens lakes.At certain seasons an insectivorous• .1- II • 1 • 11 M_I, frequentsaquatic flies and grubs, bocomes so fat it can hardly fly. Hunters kill these spoonbill ducks for their oil, os the grub on which they feed imparts to them a fishy taste so strong that they cannot be eaten except by Indians, who eat both worms and ducks. Ducks killed by hunters and lost are sometimes found In the waters of the lake. All tho feathers are eaten off tho fowl by the alkaline solution, and tho layer of fat beneath tho skin,* an inch in thickness. Is found to bo changed to soap, hard os tho best castUe and beautifully white.—Virginia City Enterprise.upon tho
Newspaper Details
Americus Weekly Recorder
Americus, Georgia, US
Thu, Jan 03, 1889
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Dean T.
USA 10 Dec 2022
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