Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1901-12-14
KANSAS GREAT SALT MINE.

Something was printed on this page
the other day about salt and the
sources of supply. In that article 1t was
stated that Kansas was one Of the great
salt producing states. bVt the reason for
Il was not then given, A writer in the
New York Sun shows wherein Kansas
excels in this respect:
Rice county, Kansas, is nenrly in the
center Of the state. 1t lies almost on
the border of that western part of Kan
sas where, as a well-known writer has
said. crops arr. very uncertain and the
farmer must work ten days i'll the week
and sleep only ON holidays" Its popula-
ton in 1900, 14,745, increased In ten years
only by 294 souls But Rice county has
attained a claim to distinction that is
almost unique in this country. 1t is
mining rock salt nearly quarter of a
mile under ground and has dug out OF
this mineral wealth about as many
streets as there are in Lyons, the capi-
tai of the county, little city OF come
100 Inhabitants.
Fourteen years ago some prospectors
when. much to their surprise, their drill,
at depth of SD feet penetrated body
OF rock salt. They kept their drill at
work. but 1t was not till they had
reached a depth of 100 feet that they
got to the bottom of the thick bed OF
salt. Several years later a company
was organized to work the salt bed and
so shaft was sunk about three-fourths
of mile from the city of Lyons. The
shaft penetrated the bed of salt to a
depth OF 265 feet, the bottom OF the shaft
being LOGS feet below the surface There
We're thirty or forty feet of salt below
the bottom of the shaft.
One vein of salt eighteen feet in
thickness and OF exceptional purity, was
selected for mining, and it is thru this
vein that the underground works have
been extended. The bottom of the shaft
is the center of operations and the works
extending from it resemble the rectan-
gular streets OF well-laid-out town.
The main streets are twenty i've feet in
width, running east and west AT fire.
quent intervals they are crossed by 9TH
er streets of the same width, running
north and south. From these cross
streets rooms or chambers are dug out
each having width of fifty feet; and
between each room and the one next to
IL a pillar Of salt is left, fifty feet wide,
to support the ceiling, or in other words,
the salt roof over the workings which is
only about ten feet above the floor AS
this bed is yielding nearly 100000 bar
rels of salt every year 1t will be readily
understood that the ramfications of
these streets far below the surface have
become quite extensive.
Ingenious machinery is used for min
ing, the operation being comparatively
simple. A mass Of salt is first undercut
on level with the floor of the adjoining
street by a channelling machine oper-
ated by compressed air. Holes are then
made with air drills in the salt above
this cut. The next step is to place dyna-
mite in these holes, which Is exploded
by electricity, bringing the salt down to
the floor of the mine. The loose salt is
then loaded on cars, each holding about
two tons, and the cars are run on rails
thru the streets to the shaft. The cars
are hoisted to the. top of a fiye-sitory mill
that has been built directly over the
mouth Of the shaft The salt III dumped
automatically from the mine cars into
crushers and passes by gravity down