186 



Report of the State Geologist. 



Strong brine was found in a well at Eden valley, 35 miles west and a 

 little south from Warsaw, at 1025 feet below the surface, and at Gowanda, in 

 the valley of Cattaraugus creek, 45 miles south-west from Warsaw, at the 

 depth of 1700 feet. 



The salt bed was first reached in the Genesee valley in 1883, in a. well 

 located near the shaft of the Retsof Salt Mine, ten miles directly east from the 

 Pioneer well at Wyoming. 



In the ensuing five years following this discovery wells were sunk to 

 the salt at fourteen or fifteen different localities in the Genesee valley or the 

 valleys opening into it. 



The most northerly of these was at Teasel Hollow in the town of 

 Caledonia, three miles southwest from the village of Caledonia. The salt bed 

 was found at the depth of 650 feet. Mr. Bishop's record gives the thickness 

 as twenty-five feet. Another authority, Lieut. Evershed states it to be fifteen 

 feet. 



The most southerly wells are at Nunda, near the head of the valley of 

 Cashaqua creek, where the salt bed was reached at 2070 feet, and at the head 

 of the Canaseraga valley near Dansville, where it is sixty feet thick and lies 

 2140 feet below the top of the well. 



Reference has already been made to the fact that in the well put 

 down in 1882 at Mutton ville (now Vincent), rock salt was found at a depth 

 of 1300 feet. The horizon of the mouth of this well is sixty feet below the 

 top of the Hamilton Group as exposed in a neighboring ravine. 



In 1894, a well was drilled one-half mile north of the center of the south 

 line of the town of West Bloomfield, seven miles directly west from the last 

 mentioned well ; in this a layer of rock salt nine feet thick was reached at 

 the depth of 1218 feet. The geologic horizon of the mouth of this well is 

 twenty-five feet below the Encrinal band of the Hamilton group, and the top 

 of the Corniferous limestone was reached at 455 feet. 



From this record it appears that the layer of salt found in this well is 7 63 

 feet below the top of the Corniferous limestone, while in the Livonia salt 

 shaft, distant about eight miles south-west, the salt bed is 502 feet below that 

 point. 



In February, 1884, the top of the salt bed was reached in a well at 

 Naples, near the south end of the Canandaigua lake valley, at the depth of 

 1590 feet. The first stratum of salt was twenty-five feet thick, then rock for 

 twenty feet and below this another layer of salt was penetrated to the depth 

 of eighteen feet when, owing to an accident, drilling ceased, the bottom of 

 the well being in the salt. 



