300 SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



be elevated, will not the brine be forced up by hydrostatic 

 pressure? I admit that if the borders were elevated on 

 all sides above the place of boring, such would be the case. 

 But if the borders were thus elevated, we should have an 

 area without surface drainage ; and, instead of being a 

 place for salt-making operations, it would be the bed of a 

 sea or lake. The supposed condition is therefore incom- 

 patible with the hypothesis of well-boring. If we assume 

 the existence of a single gap in the encircling rim through 

 which the surface waters may be carried off, it must be 

 borne in mind that this gap will also drain the brine-for- 

 mation to the same level. The sheet of brine will not, 

 therefore, rise to a higher level than the place of boring ; 

 and if the elevated rim become charged with fresh waters, 

 they can be of no avail for hydrostatic pressure, since the 

 notch is an outlet through which the pressure would find 

 relief at that level. Of necessity, then, the place of boring 

 must be somewhat higher than the continuous rim of the 

 saliferous basin, and the brine can only be brought to the 

 surface by the pump. In penetrating to the deep-seated 

 reservoir of brine, other water-bearing strata may be 

 passed whose elevation, at some point more or less remote, 

 may be such as to originate an Artesian overflow. In 

 working the deep brine, this water must either be stopped 

 off, or a closed tube must be sunk through the midst of it 

 to the brine formation, where it must be closely packed 

 around, to prevent communication with the fresh waters 

 above. 



One other consideration should be mentioned. The brine 

 is not always — nor generally — found in the formation in 

 which the salt was originally deposited. When, on the 

 elevation of the continent, meteoric waters percolated 

 through the strata and redissolved the salt, the solution 

 would be retained in the same formation only on the con- 



