by the same reason given above, which is, that the same thing would happen in marshes and other waters, which are dried up by the heat.  Again, it has been said that the saltness of the sea is the sweat of the earth; to this it may be answered that all the springs of water which penetrate through the earth, would then be salt.  But the conclusion is, that the saltness of the sea must proceed from the many springs of water which, as they penetrate into the earth, find mines of salt and these they dissolve in part, and carry with them to the ocean and the other seas, whence the clouds, the begetters of rivers, never carry it up.  And the sea would be salter in our times than ever it was at any time; and if the adversary were to say that in infinite time the sea would dry up or congeal into salt, to this I answer that this salt is restored to the earth by the setting free of that part of the earth which rises out of the sea with the salt it has acquired, and the rivers return it to the earth under the sea.

[Footnote:  See PLINY, Hist.  Nat.  II, CIII [C]. Itaque Solis ardore siccatur liquor:  et hoc esse masculum sidus accepimus, torrens cuncta sorbensque. (cp.  CIV.) Sic mari late patenti saporem incoqui salis, aut quia exhausto inde dulci tenuique, quod facillime trahat vis ignea, omne asperius crassiusque linquatur:  ideo summa aequorum aqua dulciorem profundam; hanc esse veriorem causam, quam quod mare terrae sudor sit aeternus:  aut quia plurimum ex arido misceatur illi vapore:  aut quia terrae natura sicut medicatas aquas inficiat ... (cp.  CV):  altissimum mare XV. stadiorum Fabianus tradit.  Alii n Ponto coadverso Coraxorum gentis (vocant B Ponti) trecentis fere a continenti stadiis immensam altitudinem maris tradunt, vadis nunquam repertis. (cp.  CVI [CIII]) Mirabilius id faciunt aquae dulces, juxta mare, ut fistulis emicantes.  Nam nec aquarum natura a miraculis cessat.  Dulces mari invehuntur, leviores haud dubie.  Ideo et marinae, quarum natura gravior, magis invecta sustinent.  Quaedam vero et dulces inter se supermeant alias.]

947.

For the third and last reason we will say that salt is in all created things; and this we learn from water passed over the ashes and cinders of burnt things; and the urine of every animal, and the superfluities issuing from their bodies, and the earth into which all things are converted by corruption.

But,—­to put it better,—­given that the world is everlasting, it must be admitted that its population will also be eternal; hence the human species has eternally been and would be consumers of salt; and if all the mass of the earth were to be turned into salt, it would not suffice for all human food [Footnote 27:  That is, on the supposition that salt, once consumed, disappears for ever.]; whence we are forced to admit, either that the species of salt must be everlasting like the world, or that it dies and is born again like the men who devour it.