SALT-MINING IN NEW YORK. 



725 



were enforced with such severity that many 

 German manufacturers and merchants and 

 some Englishmen were forced to abandon their 

 business. The law prohibiting foreign Jews 

 from trading within the confines of the Russian 

 empire was extended to Poland, where many 

 merchants were expelled on short notice, al- 

 though provided with the requisite guild cer- 

 tificates. In order to prevent Russians from 

 traveling or residing abroad, a duty of 150 

 rubles was imposed on passports, and 10 rubles 

 a quarter during absence from Russia, while 

 foreigners living in Russia were compelled to 

 pay 30 rubles a month for the privilege. A 

 statistical investigation showed that 1,900,000 

 acres in Russian Poland were owned by for- 

 eigners, 29,370 of whom were Prussians, in- 

 cluding 900 large landholders and 550 manu- 

 facturers, 3,040 were Austrians, and more than 

 700 belonged to other nationalities. 



The Czar's Visit to the Cossacks. In May the 

 Emperor and Empress, with the heir-apparent, 

 visited the country of the Don Cossacks. A 

 continuous line of sentinels guarded the 1,160 

 miles of railway over which the imperial party 

 traveled from St. Petersburg. The object of 

 the journey was the formal investiture of the 

 Czarevich as Chief Ataman or Hetman of the 

 Cossacks, a dynastic ceremonial that is gone 

 through in every reign, unless omitted for 

 special reasons, as in the case of the present 

 Emperor. The installation took place on May 

 18, and, after a second day was spent in other 

 ceremonies and parades, the party returned in 

 haste to St. Petersburg. The Nihilists have 

 gained a footing within two or three years 

 even among the Cossacks, who have been 

 hitherto the most devoted of the Czar's sub- 

 jects in return for the favors and immunities 

 that they enjoy. 



S 



SALT-MINING IN NEW TORE. The great ad- 

 vantage of mining salt over evaporating the 

 brine has made the discovery of beds of rock- 

 salt a most desirable thing. Several experi- 

 ments have been made on the New York State 

 salt reservation at Syracuse. The first, directed 

 by the Legislature of 1838, passed through the 

 blue and red shales and the Niagara limestone, 

 into the Clinton group, terminating in fresh 

 water at a depth of 600 feet. The second was 

 made by the Salt Company of Onondaga, at 

 Liverpool, in 1867. The first limestone en- 

 countered, ''a dark-colored, hard, gypseous, 

 bituminous shale-limestone," was 394 feet from 

 the surface and 31 feet in thickness. It is not 

 known whether this limestone belongs to the 

 Niagara epoch. The underlying strata were 

 softer limestone, similar in character, 11 feet ; 

 hard, bluish, gypseous, and bituminous lime- 

 stone, 64 feet; followed by soft, bluish-gray 

 gypseous, non- bituminous, clayish shale, 112 

 feet; hard shale of similar order, 1 foot; light- 

 gray shale rock, frequently interlaid with hard- 

 er shale, 72 feet; and, finally, hard, green- 

 colored shale, 30 feet ; total depth of the well, 

 715 feet. The third attempt to find saturated 

 brine, or rock-salt, was made in 1867, at Can- 

 astota, twenty-two miles east of Syracuse. Two 

 wells were sunk. One of them, after passing 

 through red and blue clays for 300 feet, fol- 

 lowed by cemented gravel, and this by loose 

 gravel and sand, to a total depth of 648 feet, 

 was abandoned on encountering a hard rock. 

 The brine was very bitter, containing 4'820 

 per cent, of chloride of calcium, 0'928 of chlo- 

 ride of magnesium, 15*228 of salt, 0'015 of car- 

 bonate of iron, and only 0'0058 of sulphate of 

 lime. The second well gave no more satisfac- 

 tory results. The fourth attempt was made in 

 1881, by the Solvay Process Company, south 

 of Jamesville, near Syracuse. The first red- 



dish appearing material, shale, was struck at 

 587 feet. The failure was due to the accident- 

 al losing of tools at 1,040 feet. The fifth at- 

 tempt, made by the same company, in the 

 Onondaga valley, near Cardiff, about twelve 

 miles south of Syracuse, was abandoned in 

 consequence of the bending of the well-tube. 

 The material passed through was similar to 

 that met with when sinking wells on the State 

 reservation diluvial drift in masses. The sixth 

 attempt was undertaken by the same company 

 in 1882, about eight miles southwest of Syra- 

 cuse, at Cedar Vale. The materials passed 

 through after reaching a depth of 795 feet 

 were : mixed shales, green shale, red shale, 

 green shale, red shale, green shale, shale and 

 sand, red shale, green shale, and red shale. 

 The brine obtained by pumping this well from 

 a depth of 500 feet (the length of the pump) 

 stood 90 on the salometer, or 10 within the 

 saturation point. In 1884 a seventh attempt 

 was made, by the enterprise of a private indi- 

 vidual, to answer the question : " Does rock- 

 salt lie under the reservation ? " The location 

 was three miles west of Syracuse, north of 

 the Oswego Canal and Onondaga Lake. The 

 total depth of the well was 1,600 feet. Nearly 

 all of these samples contained carbonates, the 

 greater part being magnesian ; some in abun- 

 dance, others only in traces. The limestones 

 were, with few exceptions, bituminous. The 

 sands were hard quartz or sandstones. The 

 result showed that the Niagara limestone was 

 first touched at 527 feet, and that at 517 feet 

 the material was red shale only; disproving 

 the oft-repeated assertion that the red shales 

 are only 400 feet thick at Syracuse. It was 

 also proved that the Medina group was reached 

 shortly below 1,000 feet. An analysis of the 

 brine showed that while sulphate of lime dis- 

 appeared as the depth increased, and while the 



