LlJTHEB GrEOLOGY OF THE SALT DISTRICT. 



183 



seventeen and one-half pounds of salt, equal to one bushel (56 lbs.) in thirty- 

 five gallons). 



It became evident at an early stage of the development of the manufacture 

 of salt here, that the sands and gravels of the marsh were not the original 

 source of the saline matter contained in its waters, and some effort was made to 

 find it. It had been considered a probability that the red shales exposed along 

 the south-eastern end of the marsh contained rock salt in small grains or 

 crystals disseminated through the mass or in layers. Hence in 1839, 

 a well was sunk by the state to the depth of 600 feet, into the red 

 shales near the Salina pump house, and in 1867 the Onondaga Salt 

 Company drilled a well near the Liverpool pump house to the depth of 715 

 feet. These two wells were begun near the top of the red shales and passed 

 through them and 100 to 200 feet below, but no salt was found and but a 

 limited quantity of brine. 



There the matter rested until after the great bed of rock salt that is 

 beyond doubt the real source of salt in the Onondaga Salt Springs and a 

 majority of the others that have been mentioned, was accidentally discovered 

 in the Oatka valley at a point near its western limit and almost a hundred 

 miles west from the Onondaga Springs. 



Salt Wells. 



Their History and Distribution. Rock salt was first discovered 

 in the state of New York in 1865, in a deep boring made on land owned 

 by Eli Rice at the village of Vincent (formerly Muttonville) in the north-east 

 corner of the town of Bristol, Ontario county, for a local company in 

 search of oil. 



The geologic horizon of the mouth of this well is about sixty feet below 

 the top of the Hamilton shales. The only record of the rock section is that 

 given from memory by the late Youngs W. Smith, who was one of the 

 managers of the enterprise, to Mr. I. P. Bishop and published by him in the 

 Report of the N. Y. State Geologist for 1885, as follows : Shale about 550 

 feet, limestone about 450 feet. Shale and salt more than 300 feet with rock 

 salt at the bottom. 



In 1 882 a well was sunk for the Ontario Improvement Company, on lands of 

 P. P. Bliss, one-fourth mile north of the above mentioned well, and this started 

 in the same geologic horizon. No record of this well can be obtained, but Mr. 

 Bliss states that a bed of clear rock salt 14 feet thick was reached somewhere 



