214 Geology of the Trinity Country, Texas. 



and New York. This salt water I think was more concentrated 

 than even the Salina water ; and no doubt wells of a moderate 

 depth would command an inexhaustible supply of brine. The 

 manufacture of salt in this place would of course prove exceed- 

 ingly lucrative ; for the country is well wooded, and the river 

 banks, less than a mile distant, contain vast quantities of brown 

 coal. The concentration might be accomplished with wood, or by 

 solar evaporation upon the spot, or the water might be conveyed 

 in a leaden tube to the banks of the Trinity, where the brown 

 coal might easily be quarried out for supplying the furnaces with 

 fuel. The salt could then, with very little expense, be floated 

 down the river to Galveston, where it must always bear a fair 

 price. 



This region is well supplied with perennial springs, many of 

 them seemingly pure as the water which falls from the clouds 

 near the close of a rain storm, and many others imbued with di- 

 verse mineral qualities. A variety of mineral springs occur near 

 Carolina and New Cincinnati, generally in wild ravines or em- 

 bowered in picturesque groves ; but those which I most partic- 

 ularly examined, rise on the Salinilla creek in an elevated and 

 beautiful situation, in the midst of the singular saline prairie be- 

 fore mentioned, with the forest clad banks of the Trinity, half a 

 mile or so to the east, and a noble prospect of high rolling prairie 

 lawn and woodland, bearing away to the southwest. The Sa- 

 linilla carbonated spring is sufficiently copious to yield nearly half 

 a barrel per minute. Though its temperature as carefully ascer- 

 tained is but 68° Fahr., yet it has some claim to be called a boil- 

 ing spring, on account of the incessant bubbling up of nitrogen 

 and carbonic acid gases ; with which latter, the water itself is 

 strongly impregnated. I find the specific gravity of this water 

 at 60° Fahr., to be 1.00 67. Four parts in a thousand by weight 

 are saline mineral matter which can be obtained by evaporation. 

 By means of numerous careful experiments with chemical re- 

 agents, I find the water to contain the following ingredients, viz. 

 carbonic acid, chlorine, iodine, soda, lime, magnesia, organic 

 matter a trace. We may therefore infer, that the gaseous and 

 mineral contents of the spring are. 



Carbonic acid. 



Nitrogen, 



Miu'iate of soda, 



