Book III about halite and nitrium, alum and acrid juices and related minerals, sulphur, bitumen, realgar, and orpiment; the fourth, chrysocolla, aerugo, caeruleum, ferrugo

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	40	DE NATURA FOSSILIUΜ

	animals. Early Christians collected and preserved sacred salt and believed in sprinkling salt on the bodies of newly born infants in order to make the skin firm and tough. Not only is salt of greatest value to the living as a food and medicine but it is also used by them to preserve the flesh of the dead as well as the flesh of animals that have been butchered. It increases the appetite of man more than most condiments and has a marked taste, recognized by the tongue. Food is never so tasty and delectable when eaten without salt and even if a food can be eaten without it when salt is used the food is more pleasing to the palate. Not only is it a stimulant to the appetite of man but it is also used by shepherds to increase the appetite of a single animal or a herd; by husbandmen and liverymen for beasts of burden; and by sportsmen for game. Animals lick the salt when it is placed in wooden troughs or on the ground and eat it mixed with their fodder. It causes them to graze freely and drink copiously. For these reasons, according to Plutarch, the priests of the Goddess Isis, in Egypt, do not use salt on feast days so that they would not suffer inconveniences if they ate and drank freely and caused humors to abound in the body. Fine-grained salt is used in food because it is not bitter but agreeable to the taste and dissolves readily. Bitter salt does not stimulate the appetite but actually destroys it. Since coarse and hard salt does not dissolve readily it is not used in food, as a rule and when it is used the undissolved particles of salt are gritty. Color indicates the quality of the salt, white being the best. The best cooking salt is refined from brine, for example, in Germany at the salt works of Luneburg and Halle of the Hermunduri, and in Italy at Volterra. Other highly valued salts are the lacustrine salt of Taranto and the marine salt of Euboea and Athens. At Kolomea the salt is made into thin cakes which are used as a flavoring in food and are also eaten like bread. Since every variety of salt is not found in every region, different kinds of salt are used in food in different localities, usually the variety which is most abundant. Marine salt is used in the marine provinces and on almost all islands except those which lie in regions so cold that the sun does not evaporate the sea water even when it is taken into salt works. Natural, as well as artificial salt is especially abundant in Spain. The lacustrine salt from Taranto, the artificial salt from Volterra and the best salt of Hetruria is used in Italy. France has both marine and artificial salt; Sicily and Phrygia, lacustrine salt. In Cap-padocia they use artificial, natural, and lacustrine salt while Germany and northwest Epirus use only the artificial. Sarmatia uses both the natural and artificial salt, the latter being produced both from brine and fragments of the mineral. Only lacustrine salt is used in Aeolis and Pamphylia. Halite is very abundant in Africa and India although marine salt is common in the maritime provinces of both countries and lacustrine salt in Africa, especially in Egypt near Memphis. We use salt to preserve meat since the dryness of the salt takes up the liquids in the meat and may unite the essences so that the meat is pro-

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