On the Salt Springs at Salina, Syracuse, cj-c. 7 



lieved, to those found at the salt hcks so common in the in- 

 terior of this country ; and the knowledge of their existence 

 was derived, by the travellers or white settlers who first visited 

 this region, from the aborigines, to whom, we may presume, 

 they must have been known for ages anterior to the discove- 

 ry of the American continent by Columbus. 



One of the earliest settlers in the county of Onondaga has 

 informed the writer that, to procure salt for his family, about 

 forty years since, he, with an Indian guide in a canoe, de- 

 scended a small river, that discharges into the lake at its south- 

 eastern termination, along the shore of which he passed a 

 short distance to the right, and, ascending a rivulet (now 

 Mud creek) a few rods, arrived at the spring or natural dis- 

 charge of salt water, which was obtained by lowering to the 

 bottom, then four or five feet beneath the surface of the fresh 

 water of the lake, an iron vessel, which, filling instantly with 

 the heavier fluid, was drawn up, and the brine poured out. 

 In this way, he got enough to make on the spot, by boiling, 

 and without any separation of the earthy impurities that were 

 held with the salt in solution, a small quantity of brownish 

 colored and very impure salt. Since that time other springs 

 have been discovered, at various and almost opposite points 

 on the shores of the lake, and many wells have been sunk to 

 procure brine for the manufactories at the villages of Liver- 

 pool, Salina, Syracuse, and Geddesburgh. The wells did 

 not exceed eighteen feet in depth, and in the strength of the 

 water which they respectively afforded there was great dif- 

 ference, which varied very much with the seasons, with this 

 remarkable circumstance, that it sometimes diminished fif- 

 teen to twenty per cent., and in some instances one-third, as 

 the adjoining lands, on the advance of summer, became 

 drained ; and the lake, which in the spring overflowed the 

 wells, had subsided six or eight feet. 



Until the close of the summer of 1822, the salt water had 

 been pumped principally by men, who were then superseded 

 by hydraulic machinery, capable of elevating to a height of 

 seventy feet between fifteen and twenty thousand gallons 

 per hour. Its operation produced a more rapid influx of the 

 brine, with an increase of strength from twenty to twenty- 

 five per cent., standing at 13*^ on the hydrometer of Beaume, 

 of which the point of saturation was 22°, and has continued 

 at that degree, with very little change, to the present time. 



