JOURNAL OF MINING, MANUFACTURES, AND ART.

1. THE SALT WELLS OF MICHIGAN. 2. LAKE SUPERIOR VS. CORNWALL.

THE SALT WELLS OF MICHIGAN.

THE following on this subject we condense from an article in the Western Railroad Gazette:

On the 20th of June, 1797, the first leases were granted for the manufacture of salt at the Onondaga Springs, in New York, and since that time and to the close of the year 1860, 130,737,157 bushels had been produced. Within a few years past, a new and powerful rival to this, as it were, monopoly of production, has been created by the development of the saliferous rocks of the lower peninsula of Michigan, and throughout the West, more especially, the quality of the article there manufactu red, is gradually working it into very general favor. Its quality is unsurpassed, either in chemical purity or preservative qualities. Fishermen engaged extensively in their business, among the various fisheries of Michigan, after giving it a thorough trial, unite in pronouncing it "more economical, (in quantity required,) safer and better than the Onondaga fine salt." And for butter it has been thoroughly tested, and pronounced not at all inferior to the famous Ashton salt.

The annual consumption of salt in the United States for the year 1859, was estimated at 52 pounds per capita, or, in the aggregate, about 30,692,000 bushels. Of this amount not quite 50 per cent is of domestic manufacture-the balance being an imported article. For a series of nine years, the following have been the movements of this commodity at Chicago:

These figures will show at a glance the importance of the salt trade of the United States, and will make obvious at once why active measures should be taken to prove and develop all the true saliferous rocks within its borders.

If geological indications be not fallacious, Michigan has certainly the most magnificent salt basin upon the continent, east of the Mississippi. The basin extends from Grand Rapids, in Kent County, to Sanilac County and to an unknown distance toward the North. "Within this distance," says the State Geologist, "the area covered by the coal measures, may be taken as the area underlain by the saliferous strata of maximum productiveness." These strata are made up of a remarkable series of salt-bearing shales, with intercalated beds of gypsum and limestone, and with a maximum thickness, according to the authority above quoted, of 184 feet. None of the shales of this interesting series have been found to contain

organic remains, with the exception of some amount of comminuted carbonaceous matter. Besides this group of rocks the Onondaga salt group, (which in Michigan attains a thickness of only 37 feet, and which is, geologically speaking, much older than the salt group proper,) is thought to yield brine of a sufficient strength for manufacturing purposes. The following wells are in operation throughout the State:

7. East Saginaw Salt Manufacturing Company, 1st well.......

669

8. East Saginaw

2d well...

806

The first of these in the second division is manufacturing about one hundred barrels per diem.

The salt business of the Saginaw Valley was inaugurated by the East Saginaw Company. The brine yielded Dr. CHILTON of New York 1,416 grains of common salt in one wine pint. The well furnishes about 13,000 gallons of brine in 24 hours. Dr. C. H. POTTER, the Superintendent, thus describes the process of manufacture, employed at these works:

"We get a deposit of iron in our settling vats, first, by putting the brine into them heated, (running it through a heater,) and, second, by using on each 27,000 gallons a pailful of lime. We are trying experiments to settle with other materials. In the kettles we used alum for cleansing for a time, but recently, and since cold weather, we have used nothing. The chlorides can only be removed by bailing out the residum, after say the 5th to the 8th drawing of salt, when the bitter water accumulates to such an extent as to act on the iron of the kettle, and rust the brine and the salt. This course, of throwing out the bitter water, is adopted in Kenawha, Virginia, and Pomeroy, Ohio, where the brine resembles ours in chemical composition, and though an expensive one in loss of brine, seems the only one that is practicable. * * The impurities remaining in our salt, after having been drawn from the kettles, are removed by drainage, being liquid almost entirely. This thorough drainage is the essential point in our manufacture."

*

The Superintendent of the Geological Survey of Michigan, in his first biennial report, makes the following estimate of the cost of production of one barrel of salt at Saginaw :

Aside from the cost of superintendence and incidentals, it does not appear how the aggregate can be materially increased, when the business is once fairly established. At the same time it must be admitted that is rather early in the history of an enterprise to venture upon calculations as to the ultimate minimum cost of the manufacture. As an existing fact, it should be borne in mind that, aside from the great expense attending the commencement of any manufacture, some new and economical chemical process for getting rid of the troublesome chloride of calcium, which exists in all brines, may be discovered, which will materially lessen the cost of production. The manufacture of salt in the State of Michigan is still in its infancy, and a most powerful competition is arrayed against it. Under such existing circumstances, the interest needs protection and assistance from the State, other than the present bounty upon the manufacture of salt. The most powerful incentive which could be given to its rapid progressive development, would be the discovery of some cheap method of getting rid of the annoying chloride of calcium, and this should not be left to the chances of private individual enterprise, but to the subject of research by competent parties appointed by the State.

LAKE SUPERIOR VS. CORNWALL.

The Lake Superior Journal gives the comparative statement of the product of ingot copper from the mines of Cornwall, England, and Lake Superior, taken from the report of the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives on Mines and Mining of the last Legisla

STATISTICS OF POPULATION.

PAUPERS IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND-1851 TO 1860.

A WRITER in the Journal of the Statistical Society of London furnishes us with some interesting data respecting pauperism in the United King. dom, from which we have prepared the following:

The average population of the United Kingdom, during the ten years terminating in 1860, was 28,104,000; the average of the annual enumerations of paupers was 1,109,275 or 3.9 per cent. In England the population was 18,901,000; the paupers 892,671 or 4.7 per cent; in Scotland the population was 3,009,000* the paupers 120,624 or 4.0 per cent; and in Ireland the population being 6,193,000; the paupers were 95,880 or 1.5 per cent. Thus the relative proportion on the population, was in England, 47; Scotland, 40; and, in Ireland, 15.

English pauperism is a time-honored institution, the growth of nearly three centuries; and Scotland, under its amended Poor Law, appears emulous of attaining to a scale of relief, which may pass unrebuked, by the side of the English expenditure. Ireland has been disburthened of its superfluous population by emigration. At the same time, it has been the good fortune of that country to have had its poor laws inaugurated and supervised by public servants, who were familiar with the English machinery; and who were well acquainted with the evils of a deep rooted pauperism; and, with the practical benefits which the amendment of the poor laws in 1834 had conferred upon English rate-payers, and English laborers. The decline of Irish pauperism is still more remarkable, when

we collate the numbers relieved in 1851 with those of 1860. In the former year the total was 226,452; and in the latter, 43,272. But, the pressure in Ireland, though great in 1851, was far below that experienced in the three previous years. The maximum of pauperism was attained in July, 1849, when 1,005,800, or 221,583 in-door, and 784,307 out door paupers were relieved.

In the practical management of the poor laws, the economists and the reformers have, with reason, regarded the system of "out-door relief" with great disfavor. This arises from two causes: one is the difficulty of testing the applicant's destitution; and the other, the fear that the rates may be diverted, in the hands of the employers of labor, to the depression of wages. A large ratio of out-door relief is regarded as the surest index of a badly managed Union, or Parish. In respect of Scotland the reports do not usually discriminate the in-door from the out-door paupers; this information, however, is given for 1859. The following comparison is therefore limited to that year:

*This estimate of the average of the Scotch population for the decennium, was made before the census of 1861 was published; it gives a higher figure than that enumeration warrants-consequently the ratio of pauperism, and the rate per head for relief, as represented in this paper, are somewhat lower for Scotland than they should be.

Thus it appears that for one in-door pauper, England relieved 6.1 outdoor; Scotland 13.1, and Ireland 0.03. Out-door relief was nearly extinct in the latter country.

As regards able-bodied pauperism, a comparison can only be made between England and Ireland, because the "able bodied," as such, have no legal claim to relief in Scotland. According to the latest returns, there were in England, 132,120 adult able-bodied paupers; and in Ireland, of the same class, 7,927 only. These figures give a percentage on the population of .66 for the former, and .13 for the latter country; that is, as five to one. In this class the women are, in both countries, three times as numerous as the men. England, which has workhouse room for 218,000 inmates, does not use one-thirteenth part of it for the reception of adult able-bodied paupers; on the other hand, Ireland relieves all of that class in the workhouse; England gives out-door relief to seven adult able-bodied paupers, in respect of one in-door.

The remarkable contrast which Ireland offers to Scotland, has been commented upon in the Scotch Poor Law Reports, where the Scotch pauperism has been collated with that of Ulster and Connaught. The Scotch expenditure of relief has also been compared, by the Scotch Board, with the corresponding outlay in the northern and north-western divisions of England. Those districts of Ireland and of England were selected for comparison with Scotland, as affording great similarity, in their respective circumstances, apart from the existence of pauperism.

"In Scotland," observe the Commissioners, "out-door relief is the rule -relief in the poorhouse the exception-of 119,453 persons receiving relief in Scotland on the 14th May, 1857, only about 6,000, or little more than 1 in 20 of their number, were in poorhouses. Of 53,331 persons receiving relief at the same time in Ireland, only 944 received out-door relief, 52,387 were inmates of the workhouses. In Ireland relief in the workhouse, and only in the workhouse, is the rule-out-door relief the rare and special exception. To this broad difference in the conditions upon which relief can be obtained it is probable that the vast disparity in the ratio of pauperism to population ought mainly to be attributed."* The Commissioners further remark, that of the Irish population resident in Scotland, 1 in 13 is a pauper; but, that in Ireland, exclusive of the able-bodied, this class having no claim to relief in Scotland, the ratio is 1 in 274. It is unfortunate that a similar comparison cannot be made between the Irish at home, and the Irish in England.

The Scotch Commissioners return to the subject of this startling disparity, in their subsequent report. Their observations are so important, and bear so immediately upon the facts, that I cannot refrain from quot-f ing the passage. "There are thus," they state, "in any given number o the population, more than 12 paupers in the Highland counties for every

*Thirteenth Annual Report of the Scotch Poor Law Board, p. 7.