254 



Report of the State Geologist. 



"Syracuse" group, fourteen wells; " De Wolf" group, six wells; "Gere" 

 group, six wells ; "Salina" or "Marsh" group, twelve wells, and the "Geddes" 

 group, twelve wells, and produced brine of an average strength of seventy 

 degrees salometer. 



In 1878, the truth of the long maintained assertion of Professors Eaton, 

 Mall, Vanuxem and other geologists, that beds of rock salt occur somewhere 

 in the rocks of the Salina period, was proven by the discovery at Wyoming, 

 W yoming county, N. Y., in a deep well sunk for oil or gas, of a bed of rock 

 salt, seventy feet thick, 497 feet below the top of the Corniferous limestone, 

 and at the base of the Gypseous shales. The Onondaga Salt Co. had sunk a 

 w ell 715 feet at Liverpool, in 18(57, after which no deep wells were put down 

 in Onondaga county, until 1881, w hen the Solvay Process Co. drilled 1,040 

 feet at Jamesville in the Butternut Creek valley, seven miles in a southeasterly 

 direction from Onondaga lake, having reached the red shales at 587 feet, 

 without finding salt. In 1882, the Solvay Co. put down a well at Cedarvale 

 (formerly called Montfredy's mills), about eight miles southwest from the 

 head of Onondaga lake. The mouth of this well was about 700 feet A. T., 

 and not far from the horizon of the top of the Corniferous limestone. Red 

 shales are reported to have been reached at 705 feet. Brine was found, but 

 no rock salt. The total depth of this well was 1,157 feet. About this time 

 a deep well w as sunk at Danforth, two and one-half miles south of the lake, 

 in the Onondaga valley. No record of this well is obtainable. 



In 1884, Thomas Gale, Esq., had a well bored about three miles northwest 

 of Syracuse, on the north side of Onondaga lake. The surface elevation at 

 this well is 435 feet A. T. According to Dr. Englehardt's record, the Niagara 

 limestone w as reached at 527 feet. Brine was found at 485 feet, 532 feet, 

 1,395 feet and 1,500 feet, but no rock salt. In the same year the state well, 

 situated on the south bank of the new channel of Onondaga creek, 1,000 feet 

 east of the lake, and which had already been sunk to the depth of 430 feet, 

 ending in red shale, was drilled to the depth of 1,969 feet. The mouth of the 

 well is 369 feet A. T. Niagara limestone was at 578 feet. No salt was found, 

 nor brine, except a small quantity in the upper shales. The sinking of these 

 two wells settled the question as to the presence of rock salt beneath the 

 reservation ; but the search was resumed toward the south, in the Onondaga 

 valley, by the Solvay Process Co. 



In 1888, a well was begun in the town of Tully, eighteen miles south of 

 Onondaga lake, in the middle of the south end of Onondaga creek, near a 

 cross road at the fool of the drift hills. It was abandoned after penetrating 



