AUSTRALIA'S WONDER-LAKE OF SALT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXVI, Issue 17534, 29 March 1919, Page 8

AUSTRALIA'S WONDER-LAKE OF SALT.

In Yorks Peninsula, in South Australia, there is a wonderful lake of pure salt. It is a huge'depression in the earth which fills up in the ' winter months. In the hot summer sun the water quickly evaporates, leaving a thick deposit of a'niost pure salt. Seen from n distance the surface of the lake has all the appearance of being covered with a sheet of ice. The salt crust is so thick and strong that men and even carts and ploughs can traverse it with perfect safety. Yet below the crust there is a considerable body of sluggish water.

After the rays of the summer sun have played their part, the salt is gathered. It is just raked into heaps, as shown in the accompany ing: photograph. These pyramids of salt are a striking feature of tho landscape. The salt is now fchovel'.ed into carts and conveyed to various works on the seaboard, to undergo the process of refining. Gathering the salt is trying work on account of the great heat and the dazzling reflection. Often it is necessary for the men to wear coloured glasses to protect the eves. After the loose salt has boen collected from the surface, a special kind of plough is run over it, when another harvest of the valuable material can be reaped. The yield of salt from this strange lake amounts to several +\ioiT-nn^ tons n year, nnd is among the finest obtainable. The lake is several .square miles in ar»a and is naturally a very valuable property.