48 Saliferous Rock Formation in the Valley of the Ohio. 



* 



its southern shore. At the western and northern termination of the 

 sand rock, the lime rock commences and continues with little inter- 

 ruption to the Mississippi river, and the great northern lakes. Salt 

 water can doubtless be found in all that region, where sandstone pre- 

 vails, as the two formations are known to accompany each other. 

 The superincumbent strata, composed of sandstone, argillite, marl- 

 slate, &&., as will be more fully shown in another place, varies in 

 thickness from five hundred to twelve hundred feet; and it appears 

 to sink deeper into the earth, on or near the Ohio, as the salt rock is 

 reached at less and less depths, as we ascend the streams discharging 

 their waters into this river. This is especially the fact with the salt 

 wells in the Muskingum and Big Kenhawa rivers. A few miles above 

 the falls at Zanesville the salt rock is found short of two hundred and 

 fifty feet, while thirty miles below it is eight hundred and fifty feet to 

 the lower salt stratum. From several circumstances, it would seem 

 to be a fact that the ancient inhabitants of this valley were not unac- 

 quainted with the use and the manufacture of salt. In excavating wells 

 at the Scioto Salines, and at the Blue Licks in Kentucky, the beds of 

 furnaces, and large fragments of broken pots, made of coarse earthen 

 ware, were repeatedly found, at considerable depths below the pres- 

 ent surface; affording strong presumptive evidence, that the quality of 

 the water was known and that it had been applied to the wants of man 

 in ages long since passed away. Tusks and grinders of the Elephant 

 and Mastodon, were also found in digging the salt wells at both these 

 places. The attraction of wild beasts to these salines, probably 

 first brought them to the notice of man. At the licks on the Ken- 

 hawa, several indications were discovered of their having been in use, 

 long before they were known to any white man. 



The first attempt at manufacturing salt in Ohio, was made about 

 the year 1798, at what is now called the "Old Scioto saltworks." 

 This spot is in Jackson County, on the banks of a small creek, called 

 Salt Creek, a tributary of the river Scioto. The wells were dug near 

 the creek to the depth of twenty or thirty feet, and the salt water 

 rose into the excavations from crevices in the rock below. The 

 present mode of piercing the rocks was not known until many years 

 after. The water thus procured was but weakly impregnated with 

 salt, and required frdnl six to eight hundred gallons to make a bush- 

 el of fifty pounds weight. It was also very dark colored, and filled 

 with the bittern, composed chiefly of muriates of lime and magnesia ; 

 the manufacturers not giving it time to drain, but transferring it im- 



