J8 HISTORY OF OHIO. 



ascertained to be a most valuable ore of manganese, useful to 

 the dyer and clothier. 



In the same pulverised state, before described, it is inval- 

 uable as a manure, or stimulant for vegetation, altogether 

 superior to sulphate of lime. 



It is composed of silex, lime, sulphur and manganese, and is 

 a new mineral, which we call the 



CLINTONITE. 



This mineral was subjected to one hundred experiments, 

 by myself, in May and June 1828. 



There is a lias, near the Portage summit, which makes an 

 excellent water cement. I know of no salt water in the in- 

 terior of the United States, which does not issue from beneath 

 a lias limestone, and from a great many experiments, tried on 

 specimens of this rock, found in many parts of the secondary 

 region, of the Western states, we are disposed to the belief 

 that our salt water, in the interior, is produced by this rock, 

 from below which, salt brine rises to the surface, wherever the 

 earth has been bored deep enough, to pass below this rock. 



Throughout nearly our whole hilly region, equal to ten thou- 

 sand square miles of territory, this lias, is deposited, declining 

 gently towards the southeast. There are about 100 salt works, 

 in the state, employed in the manufacture of salt, about seventy 

 of which, are located along the Muskingum river and its branch- 

 es, in the counties of Muskingum, Morgan and Guernsey. The 

 other salt works are in Athens, Hocking, Meigs and Gallia coun- 

 ties. The declination of this salt rock is ascertained to be at 

 least, thirty feet in a mile, towards the southeast. Many of the 

 salt wells in Morgan county are six hundred feet deep ; some of 

 them are two hundred feet deeper. The same declination, is 

 observed along the Ohio river, from the mouth of the Scioto 

 river, to that of the Muskingum, in all the rocks lying in place. It 

 is true, of all the strata in all that region, of iron ore, limestone, 

 sandstone, and clay. So it may be said, of the coal formation. 

 This information is of importance, to the miner and the salt 



