Report of the State Geologist. 



a demon who renders it foul I found it to be a fountain of salt water, fs-^m 

 which we made a little salt, as natural as from the sea." The Onondaga 

 Indians continued to <>wn and control the salt springe until 1788. During the 

 intervening time they had learned to use it with their food and to manu- 

 facture it. Small quantities of it were transported to Quebec and sold by 

 them and samples were carried by traders to Albany. 



On the twelfth day <>f September. 178 s . by the treaty of F<»rt Schuyler, 

 under which the Onondaga Indians ceded to the State of New York all their 

 lands, it is declared that u the salt lake and the lands for one mile around the 

 same. shall forever remain for the common benefit of the people of the State 

 of New York and of the Onondagos and their posterity, for the purpose 

 of making salt, and shall not be granted, nor in any wise disposed of for 

 • «ther purposes." 



In the month of May in that year. Comfort Tyler, with the assistance 

 < >f an Indian who guided him t< <. and pointed out the salt spring, made thirteen 

 bushels of salt in nine hours, with a ftfteen-gallon iron kettle. In the winter 

 of 1789-90, Nathaniel Loomis made between 500 and 600 bushels, which he 

 sold for one dollar per bushel. In 17^1 or '92, AYm Van Yleek and Jeremiah 

 Gould u made salt in chaldron kettles Bet in arches." In 1793, the first 

 •• block," four caldron kettles set in one arch, was erected by Moses Dewitt 

 and Win. Van Yleek. In 17V*. the Federal Company erected a plant, contain- 

 ing thirty-two kettles in blocks of four each. 



By act of Legislature, in 17^7. the state assumed direct control of the salt 

 reservation, and on June 2<>th of that year. William Stevens was appointed 

 Superintendent of the Onondaga Salt Springs. Since that date the annual 

 reports of The Superintendent show the amount of salt made each year. In 

 17ns.it was 59,928 bushels. In 18(52, it was 9,053,874 bushels, the largest 

 amount made in one year. In 1^1<>. the water of Yellow brook was used to 

 drive a water wheel t<» elevate the brine, and pumps, driven by horse power, 

 came int<> use about the same time. 



About lN21.the manufacture of coarse salt by solar evaporation was 

 !**gun. In this process the brine is exposed to the sun's rays in large shallow 

 wooden vats until crystallization takes place. At the present time about 

 seventy-five per cent, of the salt produced at the Onondaga Springs salt 

 reservation is made by solar evaporation. The first wells were dug at the 

 edge of the marsh at Salina. One of them, the first of any note, was sunk by 

 Superintendent Kirkpatrick. alxmt iMOfi. It was twenty feet square and 

 thirty feet deep. In 1830, Major Benajah Byington was authorized to bore 



