SMITH COUNTY. 223 



limestone described above, under the head of Building Stones, crops out on 

 both sides of the Saline and is overlaid and surrounded by lead colored and 

 yellowish laminated Tertiary clays. 



Large quantities of an excellent salt were made here during the war, by 

 digging shallow wells and evaporating the brine thus obtained in huge iron 

 kettles and boilers. It is said that employment was given to three thousand 

 Confederate soldiers in making salt at that time, but now the whole place is 

 being rapidly overgrown with underbrush, and only a few of the numerous 

 wells remain to tell the story of past activity. 



At Grand Saline, in Van Zandt County, about thirty miles northwest of 

 Steen Saline, rock salt has been struck at a depth of nearly two hundred feet. 

 Nearly the same conditions are met with at Grand Saline as obtained here, so 

 it is not improbable that rock salt may underlie Steen Saline, but nothing can 

 be known definitely as to whether rock salt is present until actual experiment 

 is made and a shaft is sunk. Even if rock salt is not found, it has been 

 proven that the supply obtained by evaporating the brine is comparatively 

 inexhaustable. 



BROOKS SALINE. 



Brooks Saline is situated on Saline Creek, in the southwestern portion of 

 the county. It is from one-half to three-quarters of a mile wide, and about 

 two and one-half miles in length. On all sides it is surrounded by hills, just 

 as is the case at Steen Saline. The surface of the saline consists of blue and 

 black clays. Around its edges, however, a laminated yellowish clay is seen 

 also. On both sides of the saline is seen the yellow fossiliferous* limestone 

 above spoken of, which probably belongs to the Ripley beds of the Upper 

 Cretaceous, and represents an old Cretaceous island in the Tertiary sea. 

 Brooks Saline was worked during the war, but since that period it has not 

 been utilized. Dr. Buckley, in his report, has preserved for us the record 

 of the quality of salt made at these salines. He says: 



"Brooks Saline is seventeen miles southwest from Tyler. This saline 

 covers five or six acres of land. It lies in a valley surrounded by hills, in 

 which are pockets of limestone. Seven furnaces were run at this saline 

 during the war, making one hundred sacks of salt daily/ It takes three 

 hundred gallons of the water to make one bushel of the salt."f 



* This formation is a Cretaceous inlier and contains fossils of the upper beds of the Upper 

 Cretaceous. These fossils have been determined for me by Prof. Robt. T. Hill, and are as 

 follows: Plicatula, Gryphcea vesicularis, Ostrea sp. ind., and Inoceranus sp. ind., and belong 

 to the Marlbrook marls, for which see Arkansas Report, Vol. 2, page 85. Mention has been 

 made of this Cretaceous island by Lawrence C. Johnson ("Report on the Iron Ore Regions 

 of Northern Louisiana and Eastern Texas, 1888"). 



f First Annual Report of the Geological and Agricultural Survey of Texas. S. B. Buckley, 

 Ph. L\, 1874, page 126. 



