80 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



A p^eat variety exists iu quality, color, and texture. Ilyclraulic limestone 

 is very abundant in Ohio, llarrison, Preston, Monongalia, Ilampshire, and 

 other counties, and in the Kanawha valley. 



The saline formation has been little explored, except in Mason and Kanawha 

 counties. It is associated with the vast strata of sandstone that underlies the 

 whole of this section and the southwestern counties of Virginia, in some oC 

 which Luge quantities of salt have of late been manufactured in the interest oC 

 the rebellion. The inference has been deemed reasonable, from the western dip 

 of the white sandstone from which the Kanawha brine is obtained, that salt 

 might be reached in the mountains up the river much nearer the surface ; and 

 salt has actually been manufactured upon New and Greenbrier rivers, but with 

 comparatively little success as yet. 



The works on the Kanawha, a few miles above Charleston, are extensive and 

 productive. The wells are several hundred feet in depth, yielding a brine of 

 remarkable purity, almost absolutely free from sulphate of lime or gypsum, and 

 therefore evaporated and crystallized with fewer difficulties than usual, and 

 brought to market as muriate of soda of nearly absolute chemical purity. A 

 specimen received from General Lewis Ruffner, of the Kanawha salines, may 

 be seen at the Department of Agriculture. Experience has demonstrated the 

 superiority of this salt over any other manufactured in the country. Meat 

 cured with it has kept, while that put up with foreign and American salts, 

 under similar circumstances, has spoiled. 



Extensive salt works exist iu Mason county, making a product of excellent 

 quality. The total manufacture of 1863 is stated as follows : Mason County 

 Mining and Manufacturing Company, 8,081,300 pounds ; Mason City Salt 

 Company, 8,613,600 pounds; Union Salt Company, 4,553,050 pounds. Total, 

 21,247,950 pounds, or nearly a half million bushels. 



Immense quantities of coal are annually used in salt-boiling, and millions of 

 bushels of salt produced. The Kanawha works have been much interrupted, 

 since 1861, by rebel incursions and dearth of labor, but last year produced a 

 million of bushels. 



The iron ores of West Virginia are destined to prove prolific sources 

 of wealth when capital shall organize labor for their reduction, and avenues 

 of communication to commercial centres are somewhat increased. Furnaces 

 exist in the valley and in Preston county, and possibly other sections of the 

 State. The ores are hematites of various aspects, many of them yielding a 

 high per-centage of metal of the finest character. 



The ores of Laurel Hill have long been worked. They occur in two groups 

 upon the western slope, (according to Rogers,) the upper one above the second 

 seam of coal resting upon a lead-colored sandstone, and overlaid by silicious 

 slates. The ore occurs in large nodules, variable in size, sometimes fine- 

 grained, but generally coarse, and much resembling sandstones, giving indica- 

 tions of its existence only after burning. Underlying the lowest coal seam are 

 two bands of ore, each about a foot in thickness, separated by shales, and con- 

 sisting chiefly of the per-oxide of a shaly texture. Next below conies a layer 

 of white sandstone ; then a bed of ore six or eight inches thick, undecomposed, 

 a compact proto-carbonate ; and lower still among the shales lies another thin 

 band of ore, underlaid with limestone, from which the flux is obtained for iron 

 furnaces. 



Furnaces have recently been erected in Preston county, which are producing 

 from ore bearing a high per-centage of pure metal large quantities of iron of a 

 superior q^uality. The enterprise, it is understood, has been attended with a 



