A CENTURY OF GEOLOGY IN INDIANA. 91 



and I congratulate the piiblie that it is in the possession and owiiersliip of 

 a gentleman of the enlarged and liberal mind of Dr. Adams." The letter of 

 Adams set forth but more briefly the same facts as given in McMurtrie's 

 account. He called the column at the end of the old route the "Pillar", 

 states that it is about one and one fourth miles from the entrance and, as did 

 also McMurtrie, that it is composed of "satin-spar." The main idea of Dr. 

 Adams in this letter seems' to have been the advertising of the salts of the cave. 

 He called it his "Epsom Salts Cave," and stated that the "first in importance 

 was the sulphate of magnesia or epsom salts, which abounds throughout 

 this cave in almost its whole extent and which I believe has no parallel in the 

 history of that article. The quality of the salt in the cave is inferior to none 

 and when it takes its proper stand in regular and domestic practice must be 

 of national utility. Every competent judge must pronounce it inexhaustible. 

 The worst earth that has been tried will yield four pounds of salt to the bushel, 

 and the best from 20 to 25 pounds. The next production is the nitrate of 

 lime or saltpetre earth. There are vast quantities of this earth and equal 

 in strength to any that I have ever seen. There are also large quantities of 

 nitrate of allumina or nitrate of argil, etc." Dr. Adams carried on the business 

 of leaching these salts between 1812 and 1820 on an extensive scale, and as 

 late as 1905 remains of his old wooden hoppers and troughs were to be seen 

 in the vicinity of the mouth of Wyandotte. 



In 1823 the legislature passed "an act concerning saltpetre caves and for 

 other purposes." The preamble to the act recited that "it has been repre- 

 sented to this General Assembly that great loss has been sustained by the 

 owners of stock, cattle and horses, from the use of substance extracted from 

 saltpetre caves, epsom salt caves and others of different kinds, in consequence 

 of the same having been left unenclosed by the owners or occupiers thereof, 

 for remedy whereof, etc." The act provided that the owner of any such cave 

 who should allow it to remain unenclosed and exposed to the stock of the 

 neighborhood, should be liable to a fine of SIO for every day it was left so 

 exposed, and also liable in damages for stock injured. This act continued in 

 force many years and was embodied in the Revised Statutes of 1843. 



In Plint's "Geographj' of the Mississippi Valley," published in 1833, there 

 is also a brief account of Wyandotte under the name of "Epsom Salts Cave," 

 but it was evidently compiled from the two articles al>ove quoted. 



Survey for Canal to Connect Waters ok Lake Michigan and Wabash 



River. 



In April, 1829 Howard Stansburj^ a civil engineer in the employ of the 

 United States, was instructed "to ascertain the practicability of uniting by 

 a canal the waters of Lake Michigan with the Wabash River." With a party 

 of assistants he spent two seasons, those of 1829 and 1830, in the field. From 

 his report, dated October 17, 1831, 1 have taken a few facts of general geological 



