534 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Devonian ocean. Here alone we have the beds of pure rock-salt. As 

 we come nearer the surface, the presence of the earthy chlorides is 

 more marked, and the product is less valuable, because, by reason of 

 its attracting more moisture from the air, it is rendered unfit for the 

 dairy or the table unless it goes through a process of purification. 

 The conclusion that we must reach, therefore, is, that the deeper the 

 boring goes, the purer the salt will be, whether it is in Michigan or 

 in New York. Following out the logical deduction of this conclusion, 

 we must admit that while the outcroppings of salt toward the northern 

 edge of the New York field might offer superior inducements in the 

 way of securing the brine, yet the brine when secured would be so 

 much weaker and more impure that the decreased cost of producing 

 it would be more than offset. In other words, the brine that is reached 

 at a depth of two hundred feet north of the Warsaw Yalley offers no 

 superior advantages to that which for many years has been reached 

 at a similar depth on the reservation of the Onondaga Salt-Springs. 

 In deep boring and pure salt lie the best hopes of the Warsaw 

 product. 



The relative value of brine from the various salt-producing locali- 

 ties is shown by the following table, which gives the number of gal- 

 lons of brine required to make one bushel of salt : 



Sea-water 800 to 350 



Boone Lick, Missouri 450 



Conemaugh, Pennsylvania 300 



Jackson, Ohio 213 



Lockhart's, Mississippi 180 



St. Catharine's, Ontario 120 



Zanesville, Ohio i 95 



Grand River, Arkansas 80 



Kanawha, West Virginia 75 



Montezuma, New York 70 to 50 



Muskingum, Ohio •^ 60 



Onondaga, New York 45 to 30 



Saginaw, Michigan 30 to 25 



Goderich, Ontario 22 



Warsaw, New York 20 



Not only is it claimed that the Warsaw salt is superior to any 

 other for the packing of meats and the uses of the dairy, but also that 

 it is the sole product in the United States from which soda-ash can be 

 manufactured. This article is used for bleaching, dyeing, soap-mak- 

 ing, and several other processes. Hitherto it has been imported to 

 the value of millions of dollars yearly, because no brine of sufficient 

 strength could be found in the United States. Attempts to use the 

 brine of Canada and Ohio have utterly failed. At last the brine of 

 Syracuse was tried, and it was found that by being chemically treated 

 and salted it would serve the purpose. Large amounts of capital are 

 already invested in the strengthening of the Syracuse brine ; but it is 



