PAPERS ON GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY 233 



terior of the country was largely an uncharted wilderness, 

 it was of great importance to be situated near to a supply 

 of salt. To be freed from the necessity of making long 

 trips for it meant more than one can realize today. As a 

 result, all through the West there was a decided tendency 

 toward the concentration of settlement at or near the 

 salines. 



In the case of the Wabash Saline, but a short period of 

 time elapsed between its cession to the United States by 

 Indian treaty in 1803^ and the formation of a considerable 

 area of settlement in southeastern Illinois. Within a bare 

 year and a half, a sparse colony had formed about it,- and 

 the rapid growth in population which followed, and which 

 made possible the early formation of the state, was dis- 

 tinctly related to the Saline. In 1818, when Illinois entered 

 the Union, perhaps one-sixth of the entire population of the 

 southeastern part of the state was concentrated within a 

 few miles of the salt works. ^ This was due not only to the 

 natural drift of population toward the region of supply, 

 but also, and in far greater degree, to the commercial and 

 industrial opportunities which it offered. The first people 

 who came into the teri'itory recognized these possibilities, 

 and before long, in conjunction with the Federal Govern- 

 ment wliich reserved the salt lands^ and then leased them 

 to individuals,^ they had developed an industry which not 

 only supplied salt to the inhabitants of Illinois, but fur- 

 nished considerable amounts for shipment into Indiana, 

 Kentucky, and Tennessee.^ By 1810, the works were yield- 

 ing about 150,000 bushels a year,' and boats and barges 

 laden with salt were of common occurrence upon the Ohio, 

 Cumberland, and Tennessee rivers. Within a few more 



1. Treaty with Delaware, Shawans, Pottawatomi, Miami and Kickapoo, June 

 7, 1803. (7 Statutes at Large, 74). 



2. Reynolds, John, My Own Times (III. 1855"), 47. 



3. Estimate from data given in Buck, Solon Justus. Illinois in i8i8 (Chicago, 

 1918), Chapter III. 



4. Sec. 6, Act for Disposal of Land in Ind. Territory, Annals, 8th Congress, 

 1st. sess., App., 1289. 



5. Greene, Evarts B., and Alvord, Clarence W. (ed.), Go'-emor's Letter Books 

 1818-1834 (Springfield 1909); Edwards, Ninian, Life and Times of (Springfield, 1870), 

 and Washbume, E. B. (ed.), Edivards Papers (Chicago, 1884) contain much valuable 

 correspondence relative to salt leases. 



6. Worthen, A. H., Geological Sun.ey of Illinois, VI. (Boston, 1875), 214. 



7. Cramer, The Navigator (Pittsburg, 1814), 272. , 



