No. 216.] 207 



kettle is preserved; and, second, the heat is more generally diffused 

 through the furnaces and around each kettle. By these means I could 

 make between 70 and 80 bushels of 50 lbs. each, from one cord of 

 wood, the water being of 90° of salometer. This is a good deal 

 more than was ever done at Syracuse, or any where else that I have 

 been. I propose visiting Kanhawa next month, and I hope to de- 

 rive information which will repay me for the trip. I cannot expect 

 to bring home as much as I did from the North, but I hope to learn 

 something that may be of use." 



Dr. McCall, in a letter to me dated Saltville, Va., June 1, 1847, 

 says: 



" Three o;allons of our brine contain as much salt as four of the 

 New- York brine, and w^e have no trace of muriate of lime or mag- 

 nesia; nor when our brine is 96° per salometer, has it any impurity 

 except about | or 1 per cent, sulphate of lime, which is chiefly de- 

 posited in the blocking. Oars is the best pickling salt, the whitest 

 and purest muriate of soda any where used. It can have no superior, 

 if any equal, and without any process of clarification whatever. 

 The rock salt in the vicinity is about 95 per cent, in purity, being 

 mingled with blue clay and green slaty sand, which is separated on 

 dissolution. If we could sell alum or solar salt in this country, 

 there is no doubt that by solar heat it could be made as cheap as by 

 fire heat or slow evaporation by steam." 



Salt is now sold at Saltville at 25 cents for 50 lbs; formerly the 

 price was one dollar for the same quantity. 



I have thus far confined ray extracts to American salt. I now 

 come to treat of Foreign salt. 



Solomon Townsend, Esq., in a letter to me, dated London, Oct. 

 3rd, 1845, says: 



" I have not as yet been near any of the salt works, except those 

 on the coast of France, which were much impeded by the heavy 

 rains of the season, so that the price of the article has risen much. 

 At Salines, where are the Springs, in the east of France, the water 

 is carried in conduits, 15 miles, to a forest, where it is allowed to 

 deposit its sedimenl, and is there evaporated. This is equal to the 

 plan of the Oswego people, once proposed, of having the water 

 of Syracuse thus carried to the woods of their neighborhood, instead 

 of carrying the wood to the water. 



