Miscellanies. 215 



feet. At about thirty feet, gypsum has been struck in all the wells, and 

 in the salt-rock well has continued down to the solid bed of salt-rock, oc- 

 casionally changing to slate and thin veins of blue soft clay. At about 

 two hundred and thirty feet, they arrived at the first symptoms of salt, 

 which from plaster, slate-rock and salt, gradually changed, the salt-rock 

 assuming the predominant part. 



The writer remarks, " we have for thirty feet, continued through this 

 substance, and now find the slate-rock gradually intermixing with it." 

 Several wells have been bored at different times, within short distances of 

 each other. It is said, that from one of them, some years ago, salt bor- 

 ings were extracted ; salt water was found at two hundred and twenty 

 six feet deep. 



From a single well, sufficient saltwater is now extracted in twenty four 

 hours, to afford one thousand bushels of merchantable salt, which more 

 than supplies the demand in that region of Virginia. 



The salt forwarded to us by Mr. Taylor, is highly crystalline in its 

 structure, and except a red color, (obviously derived from iron,*) and oc- 

 casional fragments of rocks mixed with it, appears to be very pure. Its 

 taste is decidedly and purely saline without bitterness; when pulverized, 

 the red color almost disappears and it is tolerably white. Some small 

 pieces were perfectly white. Specimens of gypsum were enclosed in our 

 box ; they are of a very decided character — are finely granular in struc- 

 ture, and of a grayish white. We have no account of the other rocks 

 found with the salt, but from the fragments intermixed presume, that sand- 

 stone and marly clays are among them. 



P. S. A second letter from Rev. S. Taylor, dated May 31 , states, on the 

 authority of Mr. W. Findley, who is the proprietor of the well in which the 

 salt is found, that in sinking the well, they penetrated earth and rock about 

 fifty or sixty feet, when they came upon the plaster, through which they 

 passed about one hundred and fifty or one hundred and seventy feet. 

 They then struck upon the bed of salt, and penetrated it about fifty or 

 sixty feet without reaching the salt water ; they then abandoned the dig- 

 ging, applied the auger, and bored about ten feet more, as he supposes, 

 through the salt, but the mixture of salt water renders it uncertain. The 

 roof then appears to be gypsum, but the floor is unknown. 



24. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural SrJences of Philadelphia. 

 Nos. 1 and 2, for March, April, and May, 1841. — This long established 

 and useful institution has commenced the publication of a bulletin in 

 monthly parts, containing notices of all the important doings of the So- 

 ciety, with a list of donations to the library, museum, &-c. This plan was 

 adopted by the American Philosophical Society, about two years since, in 



* It is now ascertained that rock-salt is sometimes colored by animalcules. 



