Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/249

 friendship which he had uniformly received from the deceased.

{179} But to return to the subject. We proceeded two miles, along the hilly and woody skirts of the river, and through the adjoining prairie to the saline, which appeared to be a gravelly, alluvial basin, of about an acre in extent, and destitute of all vegetation. A small fresh water brook, now scarcely running, passed through this area, and the salt water, quite pellucid, issued copiously to the surface in various directions. In one place it boiled up out of a focus of near six inches diameter, emitting fetid bubbles of sulphuretted hydrogen, which deposited a slight scum of sulphur. All the springs are more or less hepatic, which circumstance is attributable to a bed of bituminous and sulphuretted slate-clay, visible on the margin of the stream, and, probably, underlaid by coal, through which the water rises to the surface. In the adjoining heights, a coarse-grained sandstone occurs, answering the purpose of mill-stones; the stream then contracts at the entrance of a ledge of slaty rocks, and, about a half mile from its immediate outlet, the water is perfectly fresh. The only well dug upon the premises for the salt water, was about five feet deep, and quarried through a bed of dark-coloured limestone, containing shells and nodules of black hornstone, similar to the chert of Derbyshire. This salt appears to be concomitant with a coaly or bituminous formation. No marine plants appear in this vicinity, as at Onondago, where we meet with the Salicornia of the sea marshes. When the works were in operation, 120 bushels of salt were manufactured in a week, and the water is said to be so strong, that after the second boiling, it became necessary to remove the lye. No mother water, or any thing almost but what is volatile, appears mixed with