24 CHARLES ANTHONY GOESSMANN 



tion does not dissolve sodium chloride, but being free 

 from the other chlorides (unsaturated for them) it dis- 

 solved and removes them, leaving behind pure sodium 

 chloride. He also invented a process for screening the 

 salt, whereby it is separated into large and small crys- 

 tals. The system of evaporating in pans, as recom- 

 mended by him, was also adopted in the salt-works at 

 Goderich, Canada. 



Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, in his reports as director of 

 the Geological Survey of the Dominion of Canada, 

 expressed his 'deep sense of the value of Dr. Goess- 

 mann's important contributions to the chemistry of 

 salt-making in New York.* 



Professor John S. Newberry, in a paper on the rock- 

 salt deposits of the Salina Group in Western New York, 

 read before the New York Academy of Sciences, says : 

 'The unequal distribution of the "bitterns" in the 

 brines and salt of different localities is an interesting 

 feature in these salt deposits. In some places almost 

 the only ingredient of the brine is chloride of sodium, 

 and some of the rock-salt, as we have seen, is almost 

 chemically pure; in other localities, perhaps not dis- 

 tant, the brine or the salt contains an abnormal quan- 

 tity of the chlorides of calcium and magnesium and the 

 sulphate of magnesia and soda. This problem has been 

 carefully studied by Professor Chas. A. Goessmann, 

 and he has suggested what is doubtless its true solu- 

 tion, viz., that in the progressive evaporation of a basin 

 filled with water having the normal composition of sea- 

 water, the substances held in solution will be precipi- 

 tated in the inverse order of their solubility: thus 



