STATE GEOLOGIST. 111. 



honest to discontinue the bounty at the present juncture, and 

 whether the State is pecuniarily able to continue any bounty, as 

 these are not geological questions: 



1. Whatever may be the state of the salt enterprise at Sagi- 

 naw, the business is not established at any other point. 



2. Though we believe strong brina may be procured through- 

 out the center of the State, this belief is purely a geological 

 inference. The public interest would be vastly promoted by 

 bringing this theory to the test of experiment. 



3. Even supposing it certain that the Michigan Salt Group 

 will prove productive throughout the eenter of the State, there 

 is still another vast salt basin which has never been explored, 

 within our limits. This is situated about 800 or 900 feet below 

 the other basin, and literally underlies the entire peninsula. 

 Its margin rises to the surface at Mackinac on the north, Mil- 

 waukee on the west, Sylvania, Ohio, and Monroe county, Mich., 

 on the south, and Gait, in Canada West, on the east. It is the 

 soarce of all the brine worked at Syracuse and vicinity, in the 

 State of New York. There are some indications that the great 

 basin formed by these rocks in Michigan is also filled with 

 brine. Suppose this to be the case. The result would be that 

 every county in the peninsula might become a salt producing 

 county. If it is not- desirable to restrict the benefits of the 

 establishment of this manufacture, the State has an interest in 

 stimulating the exploration of these lower rocks. The offer of 

 a bounty would cost the State nothing unless the attempt should 

 prove successful. If successful, the payment of the bounty 

 would prove one of the best investments the State ever made. 



4. Should it not, after all, appear to be good policy to stimu- 

 late researches by the offer of bounties, there are still other 

 methods by which tne spirit of entei prise now awakened may 

 be seconded, unless indeed all idea of public encouragement to 

 the development of our State resources is to be entirely aban- 

 doned. The discovery ef some economical means for the sepa- 

 ration of the chlorid of caleium, which constitutes the principal 



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