GOO GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



horizon of the Nelsonville, or Straitsville, seam of coal. These find their 

 brine in the lower portion of the Waverly sandstone. The Salina and 

 Chauncey welld obtain their biine in the Upper Waverly. The difficulty 

 in south-eastern Ohio is not in finding brine of sufficient strength and in 

 sufficient quantity — although sometimes a well may be a failure — the 

 leading considerations are ch^ap fuel and cheap transportation. As 

 mines arc opened and extensively wrought, the refuse coal not market- 

 able for .rdinary uses will be more and more employed in making salt, 

 and iii chis way the cost of the fuel will be reduced to a minimum. Such 

 is the competition, that few salt-works can now afford to pay much for 

 coal. Cheap transportation by river or railroad is so important that no 

 salt-works can prosper not located upon one or the other. To some ex- 

 tent salt is transported in bulk, and the expense of barrels saved. 



Samples of manfactured salt were obtained from a large number of the 

 salt furnaces in the district, which were analyzed by Prof. Wormley. 

 From a few furnaces the samples did not not reach us. Quite a number 

 of specimens of brine were obtained, but before Prof. Wormley, in the 

 multiplicity of his labors, could examine them, they were so modified by 

 evaporation and by chemical changes produced by air passing through 

 the porous jugs and imperfectly sealed corks, that no satisfactory anal- 

 yses could be made. Should the work of the Survey be resumed, every 

 precaution will be taken to secure for the laboratory the brines in their 

 original state. 



I append Prof. Wormley's analyses of the salts in a tabulated form. 

 Numbers 29, 30, and 31 are of samples of salt from Saginaw, Michigan, 

 Onandaga Salt Company, New York, and Kanawha, West Virginia. It 

 will be seen from the tables that several samples from the Muskingum 

 valley contain over ninety-seven per cent, of chloride of sodium, and at 

 the same time the percentage of the undesirable chlorides is small. The 

 tables deserve careful study. 



