OP FOSSIL SALT AND GYPSUM. 53 
well as others along the bases of the Carpathian mountains, were 
supposed to lie, and to correspond in age to those of France and 
England, but Boue represents them as belonging to the tertiary 
period. 
4. "When it is known," says Dr. Kidd, in his Geological 
Essays, "that rock salt is used as a building stone, at Ormus, 
"and that the sand of the great desert of Persia, is of a brick-red 
"colour, and that salt abounds throughout that desert, there can 
"be little doubt in the mind of a geologist, that the ' Rock-marl,' 
"(new-red-sandstone) 'formation' abounds in that part of the 
"world." Fossil salt is more common, and is found in larger 
quantities in central Asia, than in Europe. 
5. Herodotus says that in some parts of Lybia, as well as in 
Arabia, the dwellings of the inhabitants are constructed of salt. 
It is from this quarter, (the desert of Sahara), that central Africa, 
especially the fertile and populous region drained by the Niger, 
is supplied with this important article. Shaw describes the ex- 
tensive rock-salt formations of El Jerred, a part of the great 
Sahara, as a solid mountain of a reddish purple color. 
6. Salt springs rise out the red-sandstone formation of Nova 
Scotia, which furnishes the very great quantity of gypsum that 
is imported every year into the United States from that pro- 
vince. About 700,000 bushels of salt were manufactured an- 
nually, some years since, from the water of salt springs, in the 
State of New York. The rock from which the water issues, 
is described by Eaton, as "An aggregate of minute rounded 
grains of quartzose sand, or of minute argillaceous and quartzose 
grains, formed into a red or greenish sandstone, or soft, red or 
greenish, brittle, clay slate." In the western part of Vir- 
ginia, in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, Ar- 
kansaw, and indeed throughout the whole basin of the Missis- 
sippi and its tributary streams, brine springs occur at moderate 
intervals, but they appear to be more numerous on its western 
than on its eastern side. About the time of the purchase of that 
territory by the United States, an immense body of fossil salt, 
constituting a mountain range, was supposed to exist in Upper 
Louisiana — the desert tract between the States of Missouri and 
Arkansaw, and the Rocky Mountains. The exploring expedi- 
tion sent by the General Government into that region, has 
rendered it doubtful whether there are any beds of fossil salt in 
that part of the United States; though it is certain that if there 
are none, the whole body of the sandstone must be highly charged 
with salt, as brine springs abound there. 
" The whole country, near the mountains," says Dr. James, 
"abounds in licks, brine springs and saline efflorescences, but it is 
"in the neighborhood of the red-sand-rock, that salt is met with 
"in the greatest abundance and purity. The immediate valley of 
"the Canadian river, in the upper part of its course, varies in 
" width, from a few rods to three or four miles, but it is almost 
