Saliferous Rock Formation in the Valley of the Ohio. 47 



price of salt varied from four to eight dollars per bushel ; and it was 

 supposed by the inhabitants, that its cost would always prove a serious 

 drawback on the prosperity of the country. The upward naviga- 

 tion of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers was so long and tedious, re- 

 quiring from four to six months to accomplish the voyage from New 

 Orleans, and the outlet being owned by a foreign nation, forbade the 

 expectation of relief from that quarter. Iron, so indispensable in ag- 

 ricultural pursuits, was another heavy item of expense, and was, for 

 many years, transported in the same tedious way, until iron ore was 

 discovered in the Laurel Mountains and furnaces were erected. 

 From that period, they have been gradually extending down the 

 river, until no portion of the United States is more cheaply or more 

 abundantly supplied with iron than the valley of the Ohio. Salt, so 

 valuable and so scarce in these early days, as to be looked upon 

 almost as a luxury, has now become so abundant as to sell for half 

 a cent per pound. The all wise and beneficent Creator, who form- 

 ed this earth for the habitation of tnan, has stored it with all things 

 necessary for his Comfort and happiness. In every region remote 

 from the ocean, he has deposited in the bowels of the earth, vast 

 magazines of salt. The interior of Africa, Asia, and America, con- 

 tains, in the form of rock or native salt, or of springs, fountains or lakes, 

 or of efflorescences, a sufficient supply for the wants of all the inhab- 

 itants. The valley of the Ohio, from its head water to Shawnee- 

 town, in Illinois, may be said to be based on a saliferous rock, afford- 

 ing an abundance of water, highly charged with muriate of soda, 

 and affording it in abundance, wherever perforations have been made, 

 of a sufficient depth to reach the precious deposit. There are many 

 evidences of its extending, along the course of the Alleghany range, 

 for more than one hundred miles in breadth, and for several hundred 

 in length. The salt rock commences near its western and northern 

 base, in the coal and sandstone region, and extends as far north and. 

 west, as these two interesting formations are found. In Ohio, sand- 

 stone and coal are abundant, from the mouth of Big Beaver, to some 

 miles below the mouth of the Scioto, and they cover a tract of coun- 

 try, between these two- points, from fort}^ to eighty miles in width 

 on the northern bank of the Ohio. If the salt deposit extends as 

 far north as Lake Erie, it is probably very thin, or else it descends 

 deep into the earth ; as few or no indications of salt are found north 

 of these boundaries. A few miles below the mouth of the Big Sandy, 

 the Ohio takes a more westerly course and the sandstone is left on 



