234 
[Assembly 
Chester, on the east fork of the west branch of Downes' brook, near the 
road from Walton to Colchester. The water was scarcely perceptibly 
saline at the thne of my visit ; but deer and cattle constantly resort to it 
to drink the water. 
A salt well was bored to the depth of 394 feet in the valley of Elk 
creek, about 3 J miles from the village of Delhi, at one of the Deer licks, 
and salt water was obtained, which increased in strength, in proportion 
as the well was sunk to a greater depth. The water is a pretty strong 
brine, and carburetted hydrogen is constantly rising in bubbles through 
the water in the well. The amount of the supply of the water, and its 
exact strength were not measured. Several hundred barrels of salt have 
been made at this well, and it is said to have been very white and a 
superior article for table use. 
Ten bushels of salt were made per day with two cords of wood in 
eight kettles, as I was informed. Wood is cheap in the vicinity, and if 
the supply of water is abundant, the well could probably be worked 
with profit for the local supply of the country around, if not for a 
more distant market. All the salt used in that region is now brought 
from the Erie canal, or from the Hudson river, a distance of 60 to 80 
miles. 
The water of this salt well when kept a few days, smells like free 
iodine, and probably the water may contain this substance in some form 
of combination, and perhaps in some quantity. 
It is thought that salt water in useful quantities may be obtained, by 
boring to some depth in the valleys of either branch of the Delaware. 
The rocks between the Susquehanna and the Catskill mountains dip 
slightly towards the valley of the Delaware, and in Schoharie county 
they dip southward, giving a basin shaped form to the stratification. It 
is a fact that has been forced upon my attention by extended observation, 
that many of our salt well districts in the United States, are in depres- 
sions of the strata ; in other words, they are within the undulations, as 
troughs or basins in the strata. 
Whatever be the origin of the salt water of our salt wells and hcks, 
whether from salt in mass, or disseminated in the superincumbent rocks, 
as some of my colleagues and others believe, or from the water of the 
ocean, (for there is indubitable evidence that it formerly covered all 
