Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1892 — THE ISLA DEL CARMEN. [ARTICLE]

THE ISLA DEL CARMEN.

A Wonderful Island of Balt In tb* Golf of California. One hundred and twenty miles southwest of Guaymas, Mexico, and! live miles east of the mainland of Lower California, in the Gulf of California, lies a small island known! to the Mexicans as the Isla del Carmen. Carmen Island, although only nineteen miles In length and six miles! in width at its broadest part, is noted as one of the most remarkable islands on the American continent. At this place is found the only pure white natural salt deposit known, and the value of such a mine is secondary only to the fabled gold mines of King Solomon. The Island Is owned by a Spanish-American named James Viosca, who went to Lower California thirty years ago and married a daughter of the Governor. It was not until 1865 that the salt deposit was utilized for commercial purposes Iu that year a Mexican, who divined the value of the mine, bought the island from the government, but after owning It only two years he sold his title to Ben Holliday, of famous overland stage-line notoriety, for $90,000. The new proprietor engaged James Viosca to manage his acquisition, but after Holliday died the bankrupt estate was glad to realize ready cash for the salt treasure, and Viosca became the owner of Carmen Island. To him it has become a veritable gold mine. The salt deposits cover a surface of 1,000 acres. About one-third of this acreage is a mass of pure, clean, white salt; the remainder is covered simply with a layer of soil, brought there by rains from the adjacent mountains,, and also in places with a thin coating of coral, all of which when removed show the pure white salt beneath. The salt deposits In this basin have proved by actual investigation to be fourteen feet In thickness, but it is hard to work at any depth below the surface, as the briny water seeping through creates a new layer of salt of from five to eight Inches in thickness In fifteen days. The most remarkable thing about this deposit is the fact that, although the salt has been taken from the basin for ages,| the surface of the lake has never been lowered, but always retains the same level. Like the widow’s cruse of oil, the supply Is inexhaustible. The method of obtaining the salt is very simple. A man armed with an Iron bar breaks off chunks of the crystalline mass, which are then loaded Into carts and hauled to dry land, from 600 to 800 feet distant. Here (he stuff is dumped, reloaded and taken to the wharf, half a mile* tiway, where lighters receive the salt iund convey It to the vessels lying in the bay. Crude as this system is, tlie cost of mining the salt and conveying it to the wharf averages * trifle less than 25 cents u ton. With improvements that have been sug--gested and that are now under consideration, the principal feuturcs of which are the building of a narrow; gauge line to the salt deposits and tha erection of a pier extending 2,500» feet to the anchorage in the bay, it! will be possible to handle 1,000 tons of salt a day. Under the new ar-. rangement proposed it is hoped that the present delay In loading vessels will be avoided. The demand for Carmen Island salt is so great that there are seldom fewer thaw five boats awaiting cargoes in the bay. and sometimes there have been as many as fourteen vessels lying at anchorage. Many theories have been advanced accounting for the presence of this wonderful salt deposit, but the one most generally accepted is that the, surrounding hills and mountains contain immense sodium deposits, which, are dissolved by natural courses of water, either rain or underground! veins, and then carried to the lowest; ground, which In this case Is the basin that contains the salt deposits. All creeks in this vicinity discharging their water into this lake hav© salt water before getting to a point even several feet higher than the surface water of the lake, which has no communication whatever with the sea. It Is only fed from th’esc creeks flowing from the adjucent hills and mountains. According to tests made on the ground, where standing pools of water from four to eight feet higher than the lake were found In the creeks, the water on the west side of the lake contains more sodium than that on the east side, due it Is thought to the fact that a much larger deposit of sodium exists in the mountains to the west of the lake. The salt found on this island is of & very suflerlor quality and is believed to be the only pure, white, natural, refined salt—deposit or mine—in existence. Guy Lussac, in bis chemical analysis of the Carmen Island salt, defines it as follows: “Natural sea salt, or rock salt, in a state of purity,' consists of 60 per cent, of chlorine and 40 per cent, of sodium. Its specific gravity varies from 2 to 2.25.. This Important species of the saline class possesses even in mass a crystalline structure, derived from the cube, which Is its primitive form.” In its natural deposit It is found in even layers from five to eight inches in thickness. It forms even and pure white crystals, and Is ready for the mill as taken from the lake. When fine table salt Is required no other refining process is needed than that of milling. The supply is inexhaustible. The actual deposit, extending over 620 acres, at a uniform depth of twelve feet, gives 340,170,000 cubic feet, or 12,148,928 tons of pure, perfectly refined salt. As soon as the workmen! have excavated a given number of cubic feet they abandon the site-and, operate at another point. In the first cavity the brine comes quickly' to the surface, reforms or crystallizes, and In two weeks is ready again for the native miners. This process of reftrming is constantly progressing' and the attentive watcher may see! the crystals appear on the surface in! much the same way that snowflakes gather and form a concrete mass. Carmen Island salt has a great reputation in the sister republic. It is! shipped all along the Pacific coast: from Chili to Alaska, and is largely used in Mexico for mining and do-i mestlc purposes. It reaches the City: of Mexico from Guaymas via El Paso,; where it comes into successful com-! petition with the salt from Yucatan.