66 Saliferous Rock Formation in the Valley of the Ohio. 



gallons by weight to produce fifty pounds of salt, allowing it to contain 

 no other ingredient than muriate of soda. One pint of rain water by 

 the same measure weighs one pound and one ounce. On evaporating 

 the same water, it produced within fifty grains of two ounces of salt, 

 equally dry with that put up fQr sale at the furnaces. On lying a few 

 months, the weight is diminished ten or fifteen per cent, by the drain- 

 age of bittern, composed principally of the muriate of lime, and the 

 muriate of magnesia. By this experiment, one gallon of the water 

 affords fifteen ounces of salt, and it would require less than fifty four 

 gallons to make fifty pounds. The general estimate of the manufac- 

 turers, is however, from fifty five to sixty gallons for every bushel of 

 salt. Some of the wells afford a stronger water, than this, making a 

 bushel from fifty gallons. 



One pint of the Kenhawa water, weighs one pound, two ounces 

 and forty four grains, giving of saline water, one ounce and forty four 

 grains ; the water from the river weighing one pound and one ounce 

 by the same measure. By this estimate, it will require ninety one 

 gallons to make a bushel of fifty pounds weight of salt, . But, as man- 

 ufactured at the furpaces seventy five gallons will produce that 

 amount, when by the weight of the water that number of gallons 

 should afford only forty one pounds of salt. This difference can be 

 readily accounted for, by the aqueous particles contained in the salt, 

 it seldom or never being perfectly dry. When carefully manufac- 

 tured, the western salt is as pure and as white as the Liverpool; 

 but, for preserving meat in a hot climate is not considered by the 

 packers and inspectors to be quite equal to the alum or rock salt, 

 the crystallization of which being conducted by slow evaporation, 

 is freer from earthy muriates, than the salt made by fire. The re- 

 cent discovery of making coarse or alum salt by the aid of steam and 

 now in operation at the Kenhawa salines, (as described in this pa- 

 per,) will obviate or remove this difficulty ; and be of immense ad- 

 vantage to the farming and commercial interests of the country. 



Temperature and analysis of the water. 



From the theory espoused by late writers on the subject of the in- 

 creased heat of the earth, as we descend towards the centre, I was 

 led to expect that the water rising from the deepest wells would show 

 a temperature above that of the adjacent springs, wells of fresh wa- 

 ter, or the mean annual temperature of the place where the wells are 



