186 THE GRAND SALINE. 
ed an extensive gold region about the sources 
of the Platte river ; yet, although recent search 
has been made, it has not been discovere 
The most valuable perhaps, and the most 
abundant mineral production of the Prairies _ 
is Salt. In the Choctaw country, on the wa- 
ters of Red River, there are two salt-works in 
operation; and in the Cherokee nation salt 
springs are numerous, three or four of which 
are now worked on a small scale; yet a suf- 
ficient quantity of salt might easily be pro- 
duced ah supply even the adjoining States. 
Saline, about forty miles above 
Fort. Nein near the Neosho river, was con- 
sidered a curiosity of its kind, before its natu- 
ral beauties were effaced by ‘improvements.’ 
In the border of a little valley, a number of 
small salt springs break out, around the ori- 
fice of each of which was formed, in the shape 
of a pot, a kind of calcareous ealine concre- 
tion. None of the springs are very bold, but 
the water is strong, and sufficiently abundant 
for extensive works. 
There have been several Sales, or mines 
(if we may so term them) of pure salt, discov- 
ered in different parts of the Prairies. ‘The 
most northern I have heard of, is fifty or sixty 
miles west of the Missouri river, and thirty 
or forty south of the Platte, near a tributary 
called the Saline; where the Otoes and other 
dians procure salt, It is described as re- 
sembling the salinas of New Mexico, and the 
quantity of salt as inexhaustible. South a “ath 
Arkansas river and a degree or two 
