1885.] NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 55 



Db, Newberry then read the following paper, on 



SOME recent discoveries OF ROCK-SALT IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 



Rock-salt has been struck in a number of places in the upper 

 valley of the Genesee, and preparations are now making to work 

 the salt beds. The limits of this salt field have not been deter- 

 mined, and it would not be at all surprising if the announced 

 discovery at East Aurora should be confirmed, and the salt de- 

 posits be found to extend continuously to and perhaps beyond 

 this point, which is not more than fifty miles distant from the 

 Genesee salt wells. It will thus be seen that the discovery at 

 East Aurora is principally important as indicating a greater ex- 

 tension of the salt field of western New York than was before 

 known. It is even possible that the area of this field is really 

 much greater than has been imagined, for the salt deposits of the 

 Genesee Yalley may extend east as well as west, and they may 

 even reach to connect with those recently discovered by boring 

 near the Pennsylvania line south of Syracuse. 



All the salt deposits of New York apparently occur in one 

 formation, that which has been called for that reason the Onon- 

 daga Salt Group, or more recently, the Salina formation, a part 

 of the Upper Silurian system. This seems to be the deposit of 

 a great salt lake which occupies Central and Western New 

 York, Northern Pennsylvania, Northeastern Ohio, and Southern 

 Ontario. Its outlines are nut yet definitely traced, and may 

 have been quite irregular, but probably include an area as great 

 as that of Lake Huron or, perhaps. Lake Superior. In this 

 lake, beside the land-wash, which is now represented by the col- 

 ored shales and marls seen about Syracuse, were deposited great 

 sheets of gypsum and rock salt, and when the water surface was 

 more extended, the impure limestones which form the well- 

 kno^vTi " Water Lime Group," from which so much hydraulic 

 cement is made on the Hudson and in Central and Western 

 New York. About Goderich, Canada, near the northern mar- 

 gin of the old salt lake, rock salt has been found in a number 

 of wells, forming beds two to sixty-five feet in thickness inter- 

 stratified with gypsum and water lime. At Sandusky, Ohio, 

 near the western border of the old lake, where its sediments are 

 not more than forty feet in thickness they include beds of gyp- 

 sum which are the basis of an important industry. At Syra- 

 cuse the salt is not obtained directlv from the Salina formation 



