118 First attempt at Salt maTcing. 



and is very uniformly found at this depth, up and down the river, 

 as far as any gums have been sunk. The depth of the river, for 

 ten miles above Elk, is uniformly about sixteen feet, and two hun- 

 dred and fifty yards wide at low water mark ; by which it appears 

 that little if any deposit is made in its bed by the floods from year to 

 to year. The lower part of the gravel through which the gum was 

 sunk, for four or five feet, is very hard and tenacious, approaching 

 that state, when gravel beds change into rock. When the gum was 

 fairly settled on the rock, their next attempt was to sink a well 

 or shaft into the rock, of sufficient depth to afford a supply of wa- 

 ter, but in this they were foiled, as they could devise no means by 

 which to keep out the water from the river so as to go on with their 

 work. At length, by putting a tight bottom of planks into the gum, 

 and through a hole in the bottom inserting a tube three inches in 

 diameter, into the rock below, no water could enter but what passed 

 through the tube. Here the process of boring was commenced, by 

 an augur or chisel, passed through the tube which bored a hole two 

 and a half inches in diameter, the augur and rod, or pole, being fast- 

 ened by a rope to a "sweep pole." When they commenced, they 

 little expected to obtain a supply of water by merely boring a hole 

 in the rock, having never heard of such an attempt before ; but in 

 this they were agreeably disappointed. In order to ascertain the 

 quality of the water, they had frequently to stop and clear the hole 

 not only of the water but of the borings. At seventeen feet they 

 struck a vein of salt water, the first indication of which was a bub- 

 bling or hissing of the gas in the hole. This water, though requiring 

 three hundred gallons to make a bushel of salt, was then thought to 

 be very good. The well was sunk to the depth of twenty six feet, 

 when they left off boring the first of October, 1807, and proceeded 

 to the erection of a furnace, of about forty kettles, which went into 

 operation the 11th of Feb. 1808, and made about twenty five bush- 

 els of salt a day, which was then worth ^2,00 per bushel. A 

 small vein of fresh water that came in a few feet below the top of 

 the well, they contrived to exclude by means of a wooden tube 

 pushed down into the well, after reaming it out. From this exam- 

 ple, has arisen the practice of pushing down tin or copper tubes, by 

 the modern well borers, to any desirable depth. Not long after this, 

 William Whitaker obtained salt water, and erected a furnace on the 

 opposite side of the river ; and about the same time a well was 

 bored and a furnace erected at the old lick, and several improve- 



