Note 173 — THE THIRD VOYAGE NORTH-WARD TO THE KINGDOMES OF CATHAIA and China, in Anno 1596.

Jae, datter ys berghen dreven, soo groot als de soutberghen in Spaengien—yea, there drifted icebergs by us, as big as the salt mountains in Spain. Allusion is evidently here made to the celebrated salt mines of Cardona, about sixteen leagues from Barcelona, where “the great body of the salt forms a rugged precipice, which is reckoned between 400 and 500 feet in height”. See Dr. Traill’s “Observations” on the subject, in Trans. Geol. Soc. (1st ser.), vol. iii, p. 404. Our author’s familiar comparison of the icebergs to these salt rocks, may be taken as a proof that he had been in Spain, and was personally acquainted with the locality. ↑