CHAPTER [V. 
BRINES AND THEIR INDUSTRIAL USE. 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SALT INDUSTRY IN AMERICA. 
About the middle of the seventeenth century the Jesuit mis- 
sionaries, in making Journeys among the Indians, in what is 
now part of the state of New York, heard of certain springs 
which were regarded with superstition and said to contain de- 
mons. Several of these springs were pointed out to the mis- 
sionaries, and salt was manufactured from the waters by the 
Indians and traders. 
In 1788 the systematic manufacture of salt was begun in the 
vicinity of Syracuse, and the following year the output of this 
region was about 200 barrels. Afterward, a premium was of- 
fered by the state for any salt produced on the New York reser- 
vation. After rock salt was discovered beneath the surface, in 
1878, the manufacture of salt from brines became a great in- 
dustry in central New York. At the present time salt is pro- 
duced in large quantities in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
West Virginia, Louisiana, Nevada, Utah, California, and Kan- 
sas. 
Salt in Kansas. 
Large areas of the state of Kansas contain salt on the surface 
or within drilling distance. The principal region, however, is 
near the middle of the state, extending entirely across from 
north to south. 
The salt is found: First—as brines in salt marshes, which 
leave salt on the surface by evaporation in the dry season, pro- 
ducing the so-called salt plains; second—rock salt, which is 
found at varying distances beneath the surface; third—the 
greater part of the Permian and Coal Measure shales, in the 
eastern part of the state, have so much salt in them that the 
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