342 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



cut the rock-wall, often filled up with quartz-veins but 

 oftener with stone of the same species as the cliff. 

 Along the horizontal fissures, or laminate beds, there 

 hung a white, tufted deposit which the people called 

 saltpetre, but which tasted to me more like natron. 

 This efflorescent deposit is restricted chiefly to those 

 places where the rock overhangs, and appears only 

 after warm and dry weather, being washed off by 

 moist winds and rains beating against. These rock- 

 walls were everywhere full of larger or smaller holes, 

 made by persons collecting the material for the prepa- 

 ration of saltpetre. Several such cliffs showing this 

 kind of exudation are to be found along the Susque- 

 hannah, up and down the river, and in consequence, 

 at the beginning of the war various saltpetre-boileries 

 were set up in the Wyoming region, but were given 

 over on account of the Indians or for other reasons. 

 Now this deposit and the scraped-off sand are said to 

 have been used in the preparation of saltpetre ; my 

 guide knew nothing of how the work was actually 

 done ; presumably ash-lye was used in the process. 



Dr. Wiesenthal gave me more detailed and exact 

 information in regard to natural saltpetre-crystals and 

 saltpetre obtained without ash-lye. I give his account 

 in his own words : 



' At the beginning of the American war the uni- 

 1 versal lack of gunpowder making it necessary to 

 ' look carefully to what materials were to be found in 

 ' the country, there were many projects published, 

 1 some of them impossible, others ill-considered, a few 7 

 1 promising something ; until finally a man, who came 

 ' from the Alleghany mountains, brought me a small 

 " quantity of saltpetre, mixed with some earth and 



