A Book of the United States. Various
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CHAPTER VII.—SPRINGS.
I. SALT SPRINGS.
IN the United States, salt springs are very numerous. They sometimes flow naturally, but are generally formed by sinking wells in those places where salt is known to exist, as in marshes, salt licks, and other similar places. The country on the Arkansas river furnishes some salt; it differs however, from most other places in the United States, by existing in pools, and forming incrustations on the soil of plains and prairies. There is no salt obtained in Arkansas by boring, the usual mode of procuring it in other localities. There are numerous salt springs in Missouri; the working of many of them, however, has been suspended or relinquished, on account of the reduced price of salt. Large quantities of the article are still made at Boon’s Lick, and near St. Genevieve and Herculaneum.
Salt springs are worked at Sciota; the quantity yielded, however, is comparatively small. There are no salt-works on the Tennessee river; but on the Holston, one of its tributaries, are extensive salt springs, situated near Abingdon, Virginia, and known by the name of King’s and Preston’s salt-works. These springs yield a considerable quantity of salt. Preston’s works have been rendered less productive, by being diluted by a spring of fresh water flowing into the midst of the salt.
Salt springs are very numerous in Kentucky, Ohio, and Virginia. Springs holding salt in solution are common in various parts of the bituminous coal region of Pennsylvania. They are generally weak near the surface, but deep springs, disclosed by boring, are often strong. One of these, which contains as much salt as the ordinary water of Salina, was discovered by boring, about twenty miles from Montrose, bordering on the state of New-York. The most considerable saline springs are on the banks of the Conemaugh and Kiskeminitas, about thirty miles east of Pittsburg. These rivers for many miles wind through rocky ravines, bordered by hills of three and four hundred feet in height, that rise with steep acclivities, presenting mural precipices of grey sand-stone, in places jutting over the road and torrent. Large quantities of salt are made at these springs.
In the town of Salina, in the state of New-York, about one hundred and thirty miles west of Albany, are situated the most extensive works in the United States for the manufacture of salt from natural brine. The indications of that substance along the margin of Onondaga Lake are supposed to have been similar to those found on the salt licks, so common in the interior of the country, and the knowledge of their existence was derived from the aborigines.
‘One of the earliest settlers in the county of Onondaga,’ says a writer in Silliman’s Journal, ‘has informed me, that to procure salt for his family, about forty years since, he, with an Indian guide in a canoe, descended a small river that discharges into the lake at its south-eastern termination, along the shore of which he passed, a short distance to the right, and, ascending a rivulet (now Mud Creek) a few rods, arrived at the spring or natural discharge of salt water, which was obtained by lowering to the bottom, then four or five feet beneath the surface of the fresh water of the lake, an iron vessel, which, filling instantly with the heavier fluid, was drawn up and the brine poured out. In this way, he got enough to make on the spot, by boiling, and without any separation of the earthy impurities that were held with the salt in solution, a small quantity of brownish colored and very impure salt. Since that time other springs have been discovered at various and almost opposite points on the shores of the lake, and many wells have been sunk to procure brine for the manufactories at the villages of Liverpool, Salina, Syracuse, and Geddesburg. The wells did not exceed eighteen feet in depth, and in the strength of the water which they respectively afforded there was great difference, which varied much with the seasons, with this remarkable circumstance, that it sometimes diminished fifteen to twenty per cent., and in some instances, one third, as the adjoining lands, on the advance of summer, became drained; and the lake, which in the spring overflowed the wells, had subsided six or eight feet.’ The salt springs of Salina are found on the margin of an extensive marsh.22
II. MINERAL SPRINGS.
The mineral springs in the state of New York, in excellence and variety, are unsurpassed in any part of the world. The most famous are called by the general name of the Saratoga and Ballston Springs, and are embraced in an extent of about twelve miles in the county of Saratoga. The first spring discovered in the neighborhood of Ballston stands on a flat. It formerly flowed out of a common barrel, sunk around it, without any other protection from the invasion of cattle, who often slacked their thirst in its fountain. Afterwards the liberality of the citizens was displayed in a marble curb and flagging, and a handsome iron railing. The curb and flagging were finally removed, leaving the railing, which still serves the purposes of ornament and protection. The spring flows now, probably from the place where it originally issued, some feet below the surrounding surface, which has been elevated by additions of earth, for the purpose of improving the road in which it stands.
Near this spring, in boring about six or eight years ago, an excellent mineral fountain was discovered at a considerable depth beneath the surface. Its qualities are said to be superior to those of the spring already mentioned, and, by many, its waters are preferred to any other in the village.
The United States’ Spring is situated at the east end of the village. Near this fountain, a large and commodious bathing-house has been erected, to which, not only the waters of this, but of a number of other adjacent springs, are tributary, for the purpose of bathing. Between the springs already mentioned, there was discovered in the summer of 1817, a mineral spring, called the Washington Fountain. This latter spring rose on the margin of the creek in front of the factory building; it flowed through a curb twenty-eight feet in length, sunk to the depth of twenty-three feet, and was liberated at the top in the form of a beautiful jet d’eau; but the spring disappeared in 1821. Numerous attempts have since been made to recover it, but they have proved fruitless. The principal ingredients of these waters consist of muriate of soda, carbonate of soda, carbonate of lime, carbonate of magnesia, and carbonate of iron; all of which, in a greater or less degree, enter into the composition of the waters, both here and at Saratoga.
The justly celebrated springs of Saratoga are about six miles north-east