Salt

The Nature of Saltwater

The salinity of the sea consists only of the coarser parts of its water. These cannot be:

• folded like the others by the action of the air-aether
• agitated without the intermediation of the smaller particles.

This is because:

1. If water was not composed of these small particles, it would enter bodies both with small and large pores

• It would not enter as easily into bodies with wide pores, like lime and sand
• It could penetrate those with narrower pores, like glass and metals

2. If water was not composed of these shaped particles, then they could not be so easily expelled by the mere agitation of winds or heat when they are in the pores of other bodies

This is demonstrated by oils or other greasy liquids, whose particles have different shapes.

• They can almost never be entirely removed from the bodies they have once entered.

3. These particles of the water are not exactly all equal

The sea is the receptacle of all waters. Some particles are so large that they cannot be folded like the others by the force that usually moves them.

This alone is enough to give them all the qualities of salt because:

1. They have a sharp and penetrating taste

This differs greatly from that of fresh water.

This is because the air-aether around them is unable to fold them. And so, they must always enter the pores of the tongue sharply, and thereby penetrate deeply enough to cause a prickling sensation.

The particles of fresh water have the ability to fold. This allows them to flow only over the top, leading to no taste at all.

The salt particles penetrate sharply into the pores of the meat that we want to preserve. They:

• remove the moisture
• act as small sticks planted between the meat particles where they remain firm without folding.
  • This allows them to support and prevent the other more flexible parts among them from displacing each other which might corrupting the body.
  • This also makes the meat harder over time.

But the particles of fresh water can fold and slip into their pores. This could help soften and corrupt it.

2. Salt water is heavier than fresh water since its particles are larger and more massive.

They can be arranged in less space because this is where weight depends.

These more massive particles remain mixed with the less massive ones, instead of naturally going to the bottom.

For common salt, this is because they are equally large at both ends and completely straight, like small sticks.

• If any of them in the sea were thicker at one end than the other, then the thicker would be heavier and sink to the bottom since the world began.
• If any of them were curved, they would have had time to attach to hard bodies.
  • Once they entered their pores, they could not easily get out, unlike those that are equal and straight.

But these, lying across each other, allow the fresh water particles, which are in perpetual motion, to roll and twist around them, arranging and positioning themselves in a certain order;

This allows them to continue moving more easily and quickly than if they were alone.

When they are thus rolled around the others, the force of the air-aether that agitates them is only used to make them turn very quickly around those they embrace, and to pass over each other without changing any of their folds.

Whereas, when they are alone, as they are when they make up fresh water, they necessarily intertwine in such a way that part of this air-aether’s force folds them to untangle them from each other.

Thus, it cannot move them as easily or quickly then.

These fresh water particles can move better when rolled around the salt than when alone. This is why:

• they roll around them when close enough
• after embracing them, they prevent the inequality of their weight from separating them.

Hence, salt dissolves easily in fresh water or just by being exposed to the air in humid weather.

Yet it dissolves in a limited amount of water only up to a certain quantity, as much as the flexible parts of this water can embrace by rolling around them.

Bodies are transparent as they can freely allow the the movements of the air-aether in their pores.

This is why sea water:

• is naturally more transparent and causes slightly greater refractions than river water.
• does not freeze as easily
  • This is because water only freezes when the air-aether between its particles does not have the force to agitate them.

This is also how ice is made in the summer.