SALT AND LIGNITE. 629 



The principal product of salt then used in this district, however, was 

 from brine springs and wells on the low, tlat land Ijordering the west side of 

 the south end of the southeast arm of Lake Winnipegosis. This brine is 

 so strong, according- to Hind, that 30 gallons yield a bushel of salt. The 

 product in 1874, as reported by Spencer, was about f)00 bushels, sodium 

 chloride forming 95 per cent of the manufactured salt.^ 



Brine about a third as strong as that of the salt wells of the Saginaw 

 district in Michigan was found by the artesian wells of Humboldt, Minn., 

 and Rosenfeld, Manitolia (i)ages 537 and 538). Though very pure brine, 

 it can not be utilized in competition with the salt manufacture in Michigan, 

 especially when the cost of fuel at the salt works there, using refuse from 

 sawmills, is almost nothing, while on this prairie tract its cost would be 

 about $5 per cord. A sample of salt made from the Humlioldt well was 

 exhibited at the New Orleans Exposition in 1884-85.^ 



LIGNITE. 



Thin layers of lignite coal, seldom exceeding a foot in thickness, are 

 contained in the Cretaceous shales, probably belonging mostly to the Fort 

 Benton formation, which are scantily preserved beneath the thick drift 

 sheet, and are occasionally exposed in outci'ops, throughout the western 

 two-thirds of Minnesota. Here and there fragments of lignite derived from 

 these beds are found quite plentifully in the till, and also sometimes in 

 gravel and sand deposits of the modified drift, so that hundreds of little 

 pieces, up to 3 or 4 inches in length, and very rarely a larger mass, are 

 obtained in digging a well or cellar, or may be found in the ravines of 

 streams or on lake shores. But more commonly a well dug 30 or 40 feet 

 deep in the till encounters none- or no more than two or three of these 

 fragments. Where they abound in the drift, Cretaceous shales bearing 

 lignite had been doubtless eroded by the ice-sheet within a moderate 

 distance to the north, and renmants of them may still exist. 



'H. Y. Hind, Narrative of the Canadian Exploring Expeditions, London, 1860, Vol. II, pp. 43-45. 

 J. W. Spencer, Geol. and Nat. Hist. Snrvey of Canada, Report of Progress for 1874-75, p. 69. 



-N. H. Winchell, Geol. and N.at. Hist. Survey of Minnesota, Tbirtueiitli Annual Report, for 1884, 

 pp. 41-46. 



