Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1883-08-23
AsALIHE VALLEY.
The Region Where Half the Country's Salt
Product Comes From--Boring and Wors.
ing Of the Wells.

Product Comes From--b0r1ng ana W 0rss
ing Of the Wells.
A correspondent Of the New York
EUening Post, writing from Saginaw
Mich, says: Alongside Of each of the
omnipresent lumber mills that line the
bank of the Saginaw river one sees
little structures usually painted red
dish-brown and topped by truncated
steeple. As the visitor sails down the
Saginaw toward Lake Huron for fifteen
or twenty miles, these queer little
buildings multiply, until at last. near
Bay City, they are grouped together
almost as thickly as the derricks of the
oil regions which, indeed, as to general
shape, the homely towers much re-
semble. These odd structures are the
pumping houses of the Saginaw salt
wells; the blunt steeples cover the rods
of the pumps, allowing them space for
the necessary Ip-and-down movement;
and their closeness to the big saw
mills gives them opportunity both to
use cheap steam power and to econo-
mize fuel, which is supplied by the
sawdust and cast-away slabs of lumber.
Perhaps nowhere in the world do two
great industries supplement each
other more completely, and more liter
ally make the meat they feed on"
than in the case of tile salt and lumber
works of the Saginaw region. The
great log fioated down from the remote
headwaters is the unit of original
energy which not only feeds its own
fire, saws itself up, and works the ad-
jacent salt pump, but also supplies
cheaply the slaves, hoops and barrel
heads in which the salt is finally
shipped away.
Curious, but as yet somewhat mys-
terious, are the geological strata that
from depth of 700 feet supply the
bitter water out of which Saginaw
salt is made. Whatever the geological
causes and processes may be, it is GER
tain that vast salt-rock beds of vary
ing and uncertain thicknesses under
lie almost the whole of the State of
Michigan. Every few months new
and productive well is sunk at some
point remote from old sources Of sup
ply.
A salt well is bored by simple de-
vice like an ordinary rock drill, from
four to six inches broad, attached to
ash poles, each some thirty feet long.
fitted nicely together as the well pro-
crosses downward. When salt water
is "struck," the well is piped like the
oil wells of Northwestern Pennsylva-
MIA, and the comparatively easy work
of pumping begins.
Next to the pumping-room, the first
object to draw attention is structure
which, seen sidewise, suggests the
sections Of an East river dry dock.
But all the interior is filed with
square cisterns set side by side, and
covering a space say hundred feet
long by half as wide. By rough
estimate these cisterns are ten feet
wide, thirty or forty long, and six feet
deep. Some of them are almost
empty, others pretty full of fluids of
different colors; but this fluid is in all
cases the water that has been pumped
from the adjacent well few hours
before, and its varied hues are due to
chemical changes caused by exposure
to the air and by the precipitation Of
impurities. In one tank the water is
clear as crystal; in the next it is of
tawny mud tint then comes tank
where the fluid takes on the lustrous
inky color of deep ocean water, and in
fourth cistern 1t is peagreen. Next
90 to the water as it comes straight
from the well and flows purling from
the rough wood trough connecting
with the pump. Here the water is
bright and sparkling as mountain
brook. Taste it. 1t is bitter as
wormwood, with an intense pucker-
ing SAVIOR, as nauseous as strong
fluid dose of quinine. All its saltness
seems lost in the acrid, sickening Bit
terness, which remains in the mouth
long after the tongue has touched the
fluid. In fact, however, this taste
which seems bitter, is only saltness in
tensifed. For the water contains
more than ninety per cent. Of all the
salt that water can possibly be made
to dissolve; speaking more technically.
its saturation potency Is something
more than nine-tenths. 1t Is rather
more than ten times as salt as sea
water-of which $50 gallons are needed
for bushel of salt-and at some wells
twenty-five gallons of Saginaw water
will produce bushel of solid salt
crystals. At few salt wells of the
Saginaw region also the water is SO
pure that the settling tanks can be dis
pensed with. and the water is pumped
directly to the steam vats. In most
cases, however, the cisterns must be
sed for a day or two. The deposits
left behind in them is salty, pasty
compound, much resembling wet clay,
and for which science has thus far
found no important use.
TipaIlx- xpa roach the salt works