THE SALT-DEPOSITS OF WESTERN NEW YORK. 531 



allowed to remain undisturbed until two years ago, when a well was 

 sunk in Warsaw to a depth of thirteen hundred feet, where a bed of 

 salt eighty-five feet thick was encountered. From this bed the War- 

 saw Salt Company has been drawing one hundred and fifty barrels of 

 brine daily for the past year. Two miles below this is the well of the 

 Crystal Salt Company, which, starting with a daily yield of fifty barrels, 

 has now reached several hundred. On the eastern slope of the valley 

 extensive works have been erected by Dr. Guionlock, who has had thir- 

 teen years' experience with the salt product at Goderich, in the Prov- 

 ince of Ontario, and who prefers the Warsaw product to the other. 

 Across the valley, on the w^estern slope, is the well of another Warsaw 

 company. In short, there are, within a radius of three miles of War- 

 saw, seven %vells already down and three more in process of digging, 

 the output of which when completed will be three thousand barrels 

 daily, the output at Syracuse being but five thousand barrels daily. 



The unexpected treasures found at Warsaw have added hundreds 

 to its population, have increased real estate fifty per cent, and have 

 secured a new railroad, the " Oatka Valley," in addition to the Roches- 

 ter and Pittsburg, and the New York, Lake Erie and Western, and the 

 Lehigh Valley, which are already there. The newly-laid tracks of the 

 New York, Lackawanna and Western are only a dozen miles away. 

 The hill-sides are covered with hard-wood timber, which can be con- 

 verted into barrels. With this bright outlook it would not be strange 

 if the people of Warsaw should picture to themselves a future laby- 

 rinth of salt-mines that might rival that of Austrian Galicia, with its 

 saline church dedicated to St- Anthony. Even at this stage of the 

 enterprise the men of Warsaw are said to keep one of their number 

 on guard at the arrival of every train, lest some prospector should 

 stray as far down the valley as Wyoming, Pavilion, Covington, or Le 

 Roy, or even over the ridge to Greigsville. If they have their own 

 way, no other spot aside from Warsaw will share in the benefits of the 

 discovery ; and from his elevated post on the magnificent soldiers' mon- 

 ument the stone sentinel will gaze defiantly on the surrounding towns. 

 In such a case the poet sang of the sentinel as well as of Kosciusko : 

 "Warsaw's last champion from her heights surveyed, 

 Wide o'er tlie fields, a waste of ruin laid." 



But are the men of Warsaw to have, what they naturally desire, 

 a monopoly of the new salt production ? It is evident that the aver- 

 age depth of the salt-bed thereabout is eighty feet, and that the 

 depth of boring required to reach the bed becomes less as the pros- 

 pector travels north. This southerly dip has given hopes to the 

 dwellers about Rochester that the bed will be found much nearer the 

 surface at that point — a fact that would lead to cheaper production, 

 even if the thickness of the bed were less. Then, too, the dwellers 

 east and w^est of the meridian line, upon which are located most of 

 the wells bored thus far, are confident that salt will be found many 



