Saliferous Rock Formation in the Valley of the Ohio. 61 



No. Description of strata. Thickness — feet, inch. 



50. Grey or dirty sand rock, tolerably hard and very uni- 



form in its texture or density. - - - 52 



51. Blue sandstone, hard and uniform in density, boring 



from eight to twelve inches in twenty four hours. 71 



52. Pure white calcareous sand rock, full of cells and va- 



cant places,, as if dissolved by water, the auger 

 sometimes dropping several inches at once. This 

 stratum is only about forty feet in thickness, and is 

 the lower salt rock, affording much stronger water 

 than the upper, and a more steady and copious 



supply. 



- 40 



53. Light blue sand rock, lying under the salt rock, this 



was penetrated only ten or fifteen feet, but afforded 

 no additional water, and here the boring ceased ; no 

 salt water has ever been found below the white cal- 

 careous sand rock, although at the mouth of Salt 

 Creek, eighteen miles above, where the lower salt 

 rock is only four hundred and fifty feet from the sur- 

 face they have penetrated four hundred feet, below 



it. 



«• 



- 10 



Total, feet, 1001 7 



The first one hundred and eighty two feet in the foregoing esti- 

 mate are occupied by the uplands and rock strata above the well. 

 The last eight hundred and nineteen feet and seven inches are oc- 

 cupied by the strata through which the well passes. 



Carburetted Hydrogen Gas. 



All salt wells afford more or less of this interesting gas ; an agent 

 intimately concerned in the free rise of the water, and universally 

 present where salt water is found. Indeed so strong is the evidence 

 afforded by the rising of this gas to the surface, of the existence of 

 the salt rock below, that many wells are sunk on this evidence alone. 

 It is, without doubt, a product of the saliferous formation, as it rises 

 in many wells without any appearance of petroleum, which latter pro- 

 duct is probably generated, by bituminous coal, and in all wells 

 from a depth far below where coal has been discovered m sufficient 

 quantity to furnish such an immense and constant supply as is con- 

 tinually rushing from the earth in these saliferous regions. In many 



