SALT ENTERPRISE IN MICHIGAN. 



HAVING had occasion recently to draw up a state- 

 ment of ray connection with the establishment of 

 existing conceptions respecting the geology of salt and 

 brine in the State of Michigan, I was first led to realize 

 that some obligation might rest on me to leave on rec- 

 ord, from personal experience and knowledge, a chapter 

 on the historical development of these conceptions. The 

 salt manufacture in Michigan has, in twenty years, at- 

 tained proportions which are truly enormous. Every fact 

 connected with the record of such a development possesses 

 a permanent interest. The magnitude of the salt busi- 

 ness in the state, and the large number of persons con- 

 nected with it, either in production or consumption, create 

 a wide-spread popular interest; while the geological posi- 

 tion, attitude and productiveness of three separate salt- 

 producing formations give the subject also an unusual 

 degree of scientific interest. 



The existence of salt springs at numberless points in 

 the lower peninsula of Michigan has been known from 

 its earliest settlement; and here, as in other states, the 

 Indians, no less than the elk and the deer, supplied their 

 wants from the natural salines. Numerous reservations 

 of lands supposed to contain salt springs had, at an early 

 day, been made by the United States; and several unsuc- 

 cessful attempts had been instituted by individuals to 



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