At KANSAS AND THE COUNTRY BEYOND.

formation, composed of sand and loam, from twenty to thirty feet in
thickness, brought down by the wash from the high prairies, which
rise gradually on three sides. In this alluvium, at various depths, are
found the bones of buffalo, deer, and antelope, who have probably
made this a resort for salt for long ages past, as they are seen to do at
the present time. Underlying this is the Triassic rock, which in Hu-
rope furnishes so much salt that it is termed the Saliferous system.

“The incrustation of salt”? (the Professor continues) ‘‘is frequently
three eighths of an inch in thickness. This is scraped up and used in
its natural state for salting cattle, &c.; but, for domestic purposes, it is
melted by being mixed with about twenty gallons of water to a bushel
of salt, when the mechanical impurities, sand, &c., readily settle. The
salt is again returned to a solid state by evaporation, The marsh,
after scraping, produces a second crop of salt in from five to seven
days of dry weather; and after repeated scrapings during the past
three years, yields as full a supply as at first. . ... The marsh re-
ceives the drainage of the valley slope about two miles in width and
about five miles from the north, and consequently the brine, as it
comes from the source below, must be constantly weakened by so
large a body of surface water.”

While at Salina, Col. Phillips told me much about these salt springs
and marshes, and particularly of a very singular spring which rose on
the very summit of a conical mound standing on the open plain some
forty or fifty feet high. He kindly invited me to return and take a
tour with him through that beautiful prairie region, interspersed with
salt springs, buttes crowned with iron ore, and gypsum beds sufficient
to supply the world. We would need a wagon, a tent, and ten or
twelve days’ provisions.

Salt will have to be manufactured by solar evaporation in Kansas.
_ The climate is admirably adapted to it; and, indeed, it is not only
the most economical method, but the article, when made, is better in
quality.

Gypsum abounds in Kansas. One vein of from four to ten feet in
thickness crosses both the Big Blue and Little Blue, a few miles above
their junction. South of the Smoky Hill at Salina an enormous de-
posit has been discovered and traced for miles. It it also found in
numerous places in the vicinity of the Solomon and Saline rivers.
Colonel Phillips marked it on a map in eight or ten places. The qual-
ity is quite equal to the Nova Scotia, and some thin veins of pearly
whiteness run through the heavy deposits south of the Smoky Hill.

Alum exists and might be manufactured to any extent in Saline
county, on the Smoky Hill. It is known to extend through a range
of fifteen or twenty miles.

Iron ore is found in considerable abundance in many places west of