4*3 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [kOV. 18, 



This well was perfectly dry and could only be bored by pour- 

 ing in water from the top. This indicates that here, as at the 

 Retsof mine, the salt-beds will be found to be diy and can be 

 worked without the necessity of pumping, which will be a great 

 saving of expense. 



The limits of the salt-field of western New York are as yet 

 very imperfectly defined, but it seems probable that the salt under- 

 lies an area many times larger than that where it is now known 

 to exist; yet it is quite certain that it is not coterminous with 

 the formation which contains it. About Syracuse the Salina 

 group is well exposed and has been carefully studied by ihe New 

 York geologists, but there are no beds of rock-salt in it. 



So the Salina group extends from East Aurora, where it con- 

 tains salt, northward under the city of Buffalo; but many wells 

 have been sunk for gas in that vicinity, and they have passed 

 through gypsum but no salt. It is at least certain that over a 

 large area in western New York beds of rock-salt, from 15 to 30 

 feet in thickness and having remarkable purity, lie within 800 

 to 1,500 feet of the surface. Here they are within compara- 

 tively easy reach, and there is little doubt that many shafts will 

 be sunk to them, and that the product of these mines will be- 

 come an important factor in the salt-market of the country and 

 a large contribution to the wealth of the State. 



The salt-deposits nowhere extend so far north as the New 

 York Central Railroad, and, as the dip of the rocks in all this re- 

 gion is southward from 30 to 36 feet per mile, in the southern 

 counties the salt-deposits are so deeply buried that they are prac- 

 tically inaccessible; that is, the market can be more cheaply sup- 

 plied from shafts sunk along an intermediate belt where the salt 

 can be reached at a depth of 800 to 1,400 feet. Here, in the 

 competition that is likely to be created by sinking numerous 

 shafts, those in which the salt is reached at the least depth and 

 is of the greatest purity, and where the amount of water to be 

 pumped is least, will have an advantage that will enable them 

 to monopolize the market. Wells sunk to the salt in the south- 

 ern counties may yield a brine that will stand at nearly 100 of 

 the salometer, that is, a saturated solution, but the operators in 

 this region will be compelled to evaporate their brine and also 

 to pump it from a much greater depth than is necessary at Syra- 

 cuse, where the wells are only 300 to 400 feet in depth. Hence 

 the salt industry will never be profitable in this region except in 

 those localities, if such there be, where the brine contains un- 

 usual quantities of other ingredients than common salt and 

 those that have higher pecuniary value. 



Probably at many, or at least several, places within the great 

 area where the Salina group contains salt, brines can be found 



