62 [Senate 



inconsiderable, the proprietors concluded to sink another well about 

 forty feet from this boring, which they sunk to the depth of 214 feetj 

 in this they obtained an abundance of salt water, which was 22i° to 

 22^° of strength as indicated by the hydrometer. This hydrometer 

 was graduated at O, for fresh water, and 25 for saltwater fully satu- 

 rated; 22 i° of this hydrometer corresponds with 90° of that used at 

 the Onondaga Salines. The manufacturers find it more economical 

 than to raise the water and evaporate it, than to raise and dissolve 

 the salt rock and evaporate the solution. My highly respectable cor- 

 respondent at this mine, Alexander Findlay, Esq. who is one of the 

 partners of a large house engaged in the manufacturer of salt, writes 

 me that they can make make all the salt which they can find a mar- 

 ket for. The sample of table salt which is displayed at the Fair of 

 the American institute, is from Mr. Findlay's works: it is truly a 

 most beautiful article. The water of this well is the purest and lich- 

 est in the world. It is from the comparative qualities of the salt wa- 

 ter of these two salines, viz: the Onondaga and the Saltville, that I 

 infer that the fossil salt is near the wells in the Onondaga valley. 



The salines on the Great Kanawha, in Virginia, are extensive. 

 My worthy and valued correspondent, Lewis Ruffner, Esq., who is 

 extensively engaged in the manufacture of salt at these salines, writes 

 me as follows: 



Kanawha Salines^ Jan. 17, 1842. 



" Small quantities of salt were made at this place, from weak salt 

 water found at the margin of the Kanawha river, in the sand, by the 

 Indians and earlier white inhabitants, up to the year 1808, at which 

 time stronger brine was discovered by boring into the sand rock un- 

 der the bed of the river to the depth of some seventy feet. Since 

 that period, probably an hundred wells have been bored along each 

 bank of the river, extending for ten miles, to the depth of four to 

 eight hundred feet, not more than half of which are in present use. 

 Each of these wells produces daily a quantity of water sufficient to 

 make 150 to 300 bushels of salt. 



" Its strength, tested by a hydrometer graded from O for fresh 

 water and 25 degrees for saturated brine, indicates from eight to 

 thirteen degrees in the different wells — the deepest the strongest. 

 The brine, when heated, shows a large admixture of earthy matter, of 

 a brown color. Boiled in cast iron pans, up to a point as near saturation 

 as is safe to avoid caking, the brine is drawn into wooden reservoirs, 

 in which, when left undisturbed for twelve hours, the sediment is 

 per se precipitated; and thence it is drawn into kettles in the hinder 

 part of the furnace for granulation, or into larger wooden reservoirs, 

 as is now becoming common, through which the steam is conducted 

 by copper pipes from the pan or boiler, and the brine thus converted 

 into ' steam salt,' a kind of salt well fitted for use, being free from 

 bittering, pure and white. The boiled kettle salt is more or less 

 tinged with the iron, and has no small quantity of bittering when 

 newly made, but which drips away after a few n^onths. This latter 

 salt is celebrated in the west for its penetrating meat rapidly, and 

 saving it in difficult weather; yet it does not leave so fine a flavor as 



