Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/172

 we hauled up our anchor, and dropping down the current three miles, we landed at Salt Lick landing, at six o'clock.

We walked about a mile to the salt springs. The old original one, formerly used by the Indians, and another lately opened, are on the west side of Salt Lick {144} creek and are owned by a family of the name of Beal. Three others on the east side of the creek, opened within three years, belong to a Mr. Greenup. The salt is made in three furnaces at Beal's springs, and in four at Greenup's. Each furnace contains fifty cast iron pans, of about twenty gallons each, and makes, on Greenup's side, one hundred bushels of salt per week, while on Beal's side they make only sixty bushels per week, in each furnace. The price of salt at the works is two dollars per bushel. A furnace requires eight men to do its work, whose wages are from twenty to twenty-five dollars per month each. The water in the old spring is near the surface, but the new wells are sunk to the depth of fifty-five feet. The water is wound up by hand by a windlass, in buckets, and emptied into wooden troughs, which lead to the furnaces. The old spring has two pumps in it. Much labour might be saved by machinery wrought either by horses, or by the water of the neighbouring creek; but in so new a country one must not expect to find the arts in perfection.

The proprietors of each furnace pay a yearly rent of from three to five hundred bushels of salt to the proprietors of the soil.

The valley in which the springs are is small, and surrounded by broken and rather barren hills, but producing wood enough to supply the furnaces with fuel constantly, if properly managed.

There is a wagon road of seventy miles from hence to Lexington, through a country settled the whole way. The road passes the upper Blue Licks, where are also salt springs