210 BULLETIN 10!), UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



it was reasonable that the expense should fall upon the public 

 treasury. This surviving confidence in the salt resources of the 

 State found expression in 1857 in the petitions for a renewal of the 

 geological survey, and clearly entered into the motives which led to 

 the reorganization of 1859. More direct aid was also sought. Grand 

 Rapids and the Saginaw Valley, as being the sites of the early ex- 

 periments, were naturally centers of active interest in salt enter- 

 prise. At the former place, James Scribner, in 1858, had induced 

 the board of supervisors of Kent County to adopt a petition to the 

 legislature for the enactment of a law granting a bounty on all salt 

 manufactured in the State. Petitions were circulated and a bill was 

 introduced and passed by the legislature in 1859. In the Saginaw 

 Valle}' the influence of Dr. George A. Lathrop was strongly exerted in 

 favor of the bill; and the power of the press was conspicuously 

 illustrated by the advocacy of Henry Barns, Editor of the Detroit 

 Tribune. Mr. Barns was a man of broad intelligence and deeply 

 concerned in the development of the material interests of the State. 

 The geological survey felt the benefit of his influence, and his name 

 deserves to be commemorated. The bounty law was enacted almost 

 simultaneously vvith that reviving the geological survey. It granted 

 10 cents a bushel for all salt manufactured in the State after the 

 production of 5,000 bushels, and exempted from taxation all prop- 

 erty employed in the business. 



Under the stimulus of the bounty, the East Saginaw Salt Manufac- 

 turing Company was organized in April, 1859, and began boring in 

 June. 



Tlie Grand Eapids Salt Manufacturing Company, with James 

 Scribner as president, also began boring August 12, 1859. The enter- 

 prise at Grand Rapids was prompted b}- the proximity of the par- 

 tially successful well bored by Lucius Lyon in 1840, while one of the 

 Houghton State wells, also, was distant onl}- 4 miles. 



The progress of observations under the geological survey soon en- 

 abled the director to offer valuable suggestions in connection with 

 these explorations for salt. It was in compliance with one of the re- 

 quests for advice that the opinions were drawn up which have al- 

 ready been cited in reference to the salt formation at Grand Rapids. 

 A geological visit was paid November 10, to East Saginaw. The well 

 was then down 445 feet, and Doctor Lathrop submitted for exami- 

 nation a complete series of rock samples brought up. Comparing 

 these with the rocks already studied at their outcrops on three sides of 

 the Peninsula, the State geologist was able to detect a satisfactory 

 correspondence, and announced that the bottom of the Marshall 

 sandstone, at present known as the reservoir of the brine, would be 

 leached at about 800 feet, and that there would be no need of con- 



