4 Geological Reports on the State of New York. 



In 1830, of 3,804,229 bushels of salt manufactured in the 

 United States, 1,291,220 were obtained from the Onondaga 

 springs, which in 1835 yielded 2,222,694 bushels; and if the 

 other salt works in the United States have increased in the same 

 proportion, the Onondaga springs still yield more than one fourth 

 of all the salt manufactured in the country. 



Dr. Beck, to provide against loss of salt water, allows fifty gal- 

 Ions for a bushel of salt, and estimates that if the pumps of the 

 Onondaga salines were to work three hundred days in the year, at 

 the rate of 44,700 gallons in an hour, they would yield 6,445,400 

 bushels in a year. It appears that in 1836, 100,000 gallons of 

 brine were lost at Onondaga, as the salt made was only 2,000,000 

 of bushels. The brine of this region is the strongest hitherto dis- 

 covered in the United States, unless it may be that on the Hol- 

 ston, Virginia, which, according to Prof Rogers, yields about 

 twenty per cent, of saline matter. The brine of the Kenhawa 

 springs in Yirginia, contains no sulphate of lime ; and fuel, in the 

 form of mineral coal, is on the spot. 



No saturated water, like that of North wich in England, contain- 

 ing twenty six per cent., has yet been discovered in the United 

 States. 



According to Dr. Beck, good quick lime added to the brine, fa- 

 cilitates the obtaining of the salt, by decomposing and precipita- 

 ting the bicarbonate of iron and lime, and decomposing also the 

 muriate of magnesia — while the muriate of lime previously exist- 

 ing in the water, as well as that formed in this process, is in its 

 turn decomposed by sulphate of soda — thus adding to the pro- 

 duct of common salt, and precipitating the lime in the form of 

 sulphate of lime. 



By solar evaporation, all difSculties are avoided (except delay,) 

 and a pure salt is obtained in hard white crystals, which are 

 scarcely affected by the air. Evaporation by steam applied in 

 tubes, is next in point of advantage to that by the sun ; and Dr. 

 Green, at Salina, employs this method with much success. 



Syracuse is in the centre of the saline district, and combines 

 many advantages : it is on the Erie and Oswego canals and the 

 great western rail-road. There are in the vicinity excellent agri- 

 cultural tracts, and vast quarries of the best limestone for con- 

 struction, and of gypsum for fertilizing ; the best marls are also 

 found in inexhaustible quantities. 



