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οἰκία. Houses of salt are still found in North Africa, cf. J. Hamilton (‘Wanderings’, 1856, p. 294); he, like H., accounts for the use of this material by the rainless climate. Shaw (i. 250) speaks of houses washed down by rain. Rohlfs (K. 269) actually advises travellers to provide themselves with water ‘to open graves’ built of ‘Erdsalzklumpen’. The varying colour of the salt, purple, white, and blue, is also confirmed by modern travellers, e. g. Shaw (i. 271), speaking of a mountain in Tunis, near the lake of Marks. Rain apparently does fall at intervals of five years or more, but Humboldt (Aspects of Nature, p. 3) gives the same sweeping denial as H., ‘neither dew nor rain bathe these desolate plains’ (in North Africa).

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