532 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



miles away from the said line, and they have started " pointers," after 

 the manner of the oil-country, to mark the limits of the territory. 

 The geologists affirm that all the salt of Syracuse, Warsaw, Saginaw, 

 and even of Wisconsin and Iowa, belongs to the Onondaga salt-group, 

 and that it was deposited all over this extensive tract in a chain of land- 

 locked lakes fed by occasional overflows from the ocean, and deposit- 

 ing their saline contents by evaporation. A similar process is now 

 going on at the Runn of Cutch, of which Sir Charles Lyell says : 

 " That successive layers of salt might be thrown down, one upon 

 another, over thousands of square miles in such a region, is undeni- 

 able. The supply of water from the ocean would be as inexhaustible 

 as the supply of heat from the sun for its evaporation." This theory 

 will explain why the dip of the salt-strata of Western New York, added 

 to the natural rise of the ground, makes a boring of fifteen hundred 

 feet necessary at Warsaw, while at Salina a depth of only two hun- 

 dred feet is required. 



In this fact of the strata coming nearer the surface to the north- 

 ward of them lies the danger to the hopes of the people of Warsaw. 

 In many other respects they are warranted in believing that they have 

 a bonanza. The " pointers " that have been already sunk and the 

 unsuccessful experiments that have been made in former years show 

 that the beds of rock-salt do not extend farther north than Caledonia, 

 in Livingston County, nor farther south than Castile, in Wyoming 

 County. The narrow strip within which the beds are confined runs 

 from Onondaga County, on the east, through the counties of Cayuga, 

 Seneca, Yates, Ontario, Livingston, and Wyoming, to Erie on the west. 



The claim that the sign " Warsaw salt " represents a superior arti- 

 cle appears to be well-founded — the brine having been analyzed with 

 flattering results by Dr. Lattimore, of Rochester, and Dr. Englehart, 

 State chemist, of Syracuse. The latter reports the specific gravity to 

 be 1-205. The analysis of 100 parts is as follows : Sulphate of lime, 

 •257 ; chloride of calcium, '068 ; chloride of magnesium, '005 ; chloride 

 of sodium, 2G-300 ; pure water, 73"370. The exceptionally small pro- 

 portion of the chlorides of calcium and magnesium will be noted, as 

 well as the large proportion of pure salt which the recent superin- 

 tendent of the Syracuse salt-springs declares entitles the Warsaw 

 brine to rank as 100 to 66 for the Syracuse brine. An analysis of the 

 manufactured article shows the following results : 



Soluble matter 



Moisture 



Sulphate of lime 



Chloride of calcium. . . 

 Chloride of magnesium 

 Pure salt 



Total parts 



