714 GEOLOGY OP OHIO. 



obtained in boring for oil in Coshocton and Knox counties, where the 

 position of the salt bearing rocks is very accurately determined, their 

 base resting upon the chocolate shales which I regard as the bottom of 

 the Waverly. Salt is now successfully manufactured at Salina on the 

 Hocking- Canal, and at McCuneville on the Shawnee branch of the 

 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, at both places the coal being mined for the 

 evaporation of the salt. The waste slack coal should be used for this 

 purpose. It affords a power costing practically nothing with which to 

 drill the wells, pump the brine and concentrate it ; and when it is thus 

 utilized, the cost of manufacture will be reduced to a minimum, and the 

 production limited only by the amount of consumption within the terri- 

 tory to which it can be carried by the ordinary channels of communica- 

 tion. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



The larger tributaries of Sunday Creek, Snow Fork, and Monday Creek, 

 are prominent streams affording a never failing supply of water for the 

 use of smelting furnaces. 



The Hocking Valley Railroad follows the Hocking River through the 

 southern part of 'this territory, with a branch from Logan to Straitsville, 

 and is in the control of men who will carry branches into all the villages 

 occupied by mining or manufacturing establishments. Arrangements 

 are already made for branches up the Sunday Creek and Snow Fork, and 

 it is also proposed to construct another up the valley of Monday Creek. 

 The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company has a branch from Newark 

 to Shawnee, which it is proposed to continue further into the field. The 

 Atlantic and Lake Erie road is projected from Pomeroy to Toledo, passing 

 through the valley of Sunday Creek, on which much work is already 

 done, and the road opened for business from New Lexington on the Mus- 

 kingum Valley road to Moxahala. The Cleveland, Mt. Vernon and 

 Columbus Railroad Company have made good progress toward the ex- 

 tension of their road from the south part of Holmes through Coshocton 

 to connect with the Muskingum Valley road, and by a branch from the 

 latter at Cluny Station, to extend it into the center of this coal field. 

 These roads and their branches will bring all this territory into ready 

 connection with all the great lines of railroads in the State. 



All these advantages, coupled with the fact that these lands are in the 

 center of a rich and populous agricultural territory, render the future 

 prosperity of this region a certainty. There is no place in the United 

 States, and probably not in any other country, where iron can be manu- 

 factured more cheaply than here, and very few where the manufactured 

 products of the iron can be more cheaply distributed to the points of con- 



