SALINE SPRINGS. 355 
furnishes the water is a white, porous sandrock, 
sometimes tinged with red. On the Muskingum 
there are two distinct strata of this rock, known as 
the upper and lower salt-rocks, the distance be- 
tween them being over 400 feet. The upper is 25 
feet thick, and the lower 40 ; it is this which furnishes 
the strongest brine and in the greatest quantity. 
This rock lies at different depths in the " valley," 
being deeper near its centre or most depending por- 
tion, and rising nearer the surface on its borders. 
On the Muskingum it is 800 feet below the surface; 
on the Kenawha, 400. Thus, at the former place, it 
lies far below the present surface of the ocean, it 
having been pierced at 900 feet, which is 300 be- 
low tide-water at the mouth of the Mississippi. 
Throughout the Muskingum Valley, a distance 
of sixty geographical miles, the saline rocks sink 
deeper and deeper into the centre of the valley, 
from a depth of 250 feet to that of iOOO. Thus, at 
Zanesville, salt water is obtained at 350 feet; at 
Taylorsville, nine miles below, at 450 feet; at 
M'Connelsville, eighteen miles below, 750 feet ; and 
at Bald Eagle at 1000 feet. The strength of the 
brine also increases in nearly the same ratio ; so 
that fifty gallons from the lower wells afford as 
much salt as two hundred and fifty from the upper 
ones. There are at present on the Muskingum 
about seventy brine-wells, and as many furnaces, 
which manufacture annually about half a million 
bushels of salt. The salines on the Kenawha fur- 
nish about 1,500,000 bushels per annum. On the 
Holstein, the sahne wells are from 200 to 300 feet 
deep. 
Petroleum and Carburetted Hydrogen.* — Pe- 
troleum is a mineral oil, the product, as is supposed, 
of the vegetable decomposition which produces bi- 
tuminous coal. A similar article is produced by 
* From Dr. Hildreth's Report to the Legislature of Ohio^ 
1838. 
