fd 
Lesley. ] 512 [April 21, 
Captain Smith and his son-in-law Mr. Robinson many years ago sank 
a line of shafts across the (tertiary or postertiary) plain on which Salt- 
ville stands, and all of them through gypsum all the way down. Others 
were sunk by Smith & Robinson, Campbell, Taylor & Bowen, Meik and 
others at other places in the Holston Valley for a length of twenty (20) 
miles, more orless, and up Cove Creek four or five miles still further east. 
No attempts were made to get the plaster further on towards Sharon Alum 
Springs; but there is nothing to intimate its non-existence except the 
absence of outcrops through the soil, These outcrops naturally exist- 
ing, or accidentally exposed in farming, or by the railroad cuttings south 
and west of the village, have alone (as it seems) determined the search 
after gypsum in the valley. And as the Saltville people alone have any 
proper machinery for sending it to market, a stop has been put to all 
exploration elsewhere. 
Moreoyor, seeing that Capt. Smith struck a copious brine in two of his 
wells, the opinion early prevailed that the salt and the gypsum were 
geologically connected. This opinion induced a number of persons to 
sink in the gypsum outcrops not for gypsum but for salt water. As salt water 
_ was obtained in no single instance other than Capt. Smith’s two wells, all 
hope of obtaining brine and making salt elsewhere than at Saltville has 
been long since abandoned ; and consequently all exploration of the gyp- 
sum rocks, which had no commercial value to the salt-well borers. 
It is therefore probable that the limestone wall (the south wall) of the 
Holston River Downthrow (Upthrow of limestone) will in course of time 
be discovered to be converted into gypsum at other points besides those 
specified above ; and that the gross quantity of gypsum existing beneath 
the surface along this part of the Holston River far exceeds any estimate 
which [ can make from the gypsum banks already opened. And for the 
same reason it is probable that the limestone walls of the other Upthrows 
of the region will be found turned into gypsum, at least in certain places, 
and in very considerable abundance. 
The appearance of brine in such quantity and of such strength must 
be considered as a local phenomenon explainable without reference to the 
gypsum. Such an explanation may be found in the very curious lake- 
deposit of the little triangular plain of Saltville; a deposit evidently 
made in a deep little lake or pond basin filled with red mud saturated 
. In this mud the salt-water 
ksalt deposit now rises the 
with salt-water, gypsum drainings, &c., & 
has deposited rocksalt, and from this 
copious discharge of brine which furnishes all the supply needful for the 
extensive salt works. The salt lies in solid form, mixed and inter-strati- 
fied with compact red marl or clay, 200 feet below the water-level of the 
Holston ; and the borings..have gone down (at the Salt Works) 176 feet 
further without reaching the bottom! On the top of the deposits of salt 
and mud is a stratum of blue slate more than 100 feet thick. Over the 
blue slate lie 60 or 80 feet of gypseous clays. The limestone country being 
cavernous to great depths, and especially along the face of the Down- 
throw, it is not surprising to notice that the level of water stands the 
same for ali the wells and shafts sunk at Saltville and rises and falls in sym- 
