1888, | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 123 
with luxuriant forests of live-oak, gum, hickory, black walnut, 
cypress, maple, and magnolia. About two-thirds of the island 
are under cultivation, the most profitable crops being sugar, 
salt, and Tobasco pepper-sauce. ‘Three ranges of hills can be 
traced, the surface water from which has cut its way deeply 
through the alluvial deposits, forming ravines, which, with 
ponds, forests, and cultivated fields, make the island a picturesque 
oasis in a desert of marsh and cypress swamps. 
The existence of salt on this island has been known for a very 
long time, as shown by the fragments of pottery, arrow-heads, 
and basket work found mixed with bones of the mastodon, 
buffalo, and deer, unearthed in recent excavations. The written 
history of the deposit begins with 1791, when John Hays found 
a brine spring while hunting. In the last century, salt was 
made by boiling down the brine, and between the years 1812 
and 1815 the amount produced was large. It then ceased for a 
time. Later, Judge D. D. Avery became owner of the island, 
and at the outbreak of the rebellion renewed operations on a 
large scale; the blockade made the salt exceedingly valuable, so 
that one time a bag of salt was exchanged for a bale of cotton. 
On May 4th, 1862, Mr. John Marsh Avery attempted to deepen a 
brine pit, and struck rock-salt at a depth of 16 to 17 feet below 
the surface. The Confederate Government then instituted 
mining by means of pits, and, 400-600 men being constantly 
employed, the island was a scene of prodigious activity. The 
Northern troops, however, seized the island April 20th, 1863, and 
put a stop to the industry. During these eleven months, about 
22 million pounds of salt are estimated to have been taken out, 
the average price being 44 cents per pound. 
The first scientific observer who visited the deposit after these 
events was Professor Richard Owen in November, 1865 (Am. J. 
Sci., July, 1866, p.120). In 1866, Professor Charles A. Goess- 
mann visited the place on behalf of the American Bureau of 
Mines (‘‘ Report of the American Bureau of Mines on the Rock- 
salt Deposit of Petite Anse,” 4to, New York, 1867), and one year 
later it was examined by Professor KE. W. Hilgard of the Geo- 
logical Survey (Am. J. Sci., Jan., 1869, and ‘‘ Mineral Resources 
of the United States,” Albert Williams, Jr., Washington, 1883). 
To the reports of these gentlemen we owe some of the par- 
ticulars of this notice. 
The rock-salt lies only fifteen to twenty feet beneath the 
surface. The surface soil is a dark loam, beneath which occur 
layers of coarse and fine sand, gravel, and clay, all irregularly 
stratified and in no definite direction. The salt itself occurs 
as a massive crystalline rock of a saccharoidal texture, dry, 
hard, and homogeneous, It is of a white color, exceptin streaks 
