54

The strength of the water increased with the depth the supply being inexhaustible; gives water frown 22 to 25) per cent.; clean white salt of the best quality.

At the time of our visit (September, 1874), the making of salt had been suspended, one of the Graham brothers having gone north to get new machinery for the works.

In the southern part of Wise county, salt is being made by a Mr. Fitzgerald. His works have been recently established.

Beds of salt are reported as being in the gypsum region of the Red River; also near the crossing of the Pecos, on the route from Fredericksburg to El Paso.

From the preceding it will be seen that Texas has more, and much more, than sufficient salt for all her wants now and forever.

At Swenson's saline, in the western part of Lampasas county, salt was largely made a few years ago, and al so at a saline in the eastern part of Llano county.

PETROLEUM.

A few years ago boring was made for petroleum in Nacogdoches county, about six miles south of Melrose. Here are several oil springs, from which the oil flows and spreads itself upon the surface of the water. From the surface of a shaft well, about one hundred feet deep, we obtained a bottle of the crude oil, which is very like that which flows from many of the oil wells of Pennsylvania. The indications at the surface springs, coated with oil, are much better for petroleum than is generally seen in the oil region of Pennsylvania.

The Nacogdoches springs are at the base of sandstone hills of the tertiary age. The oil flows from a bluish gray, shelly marl, at the base of buff sandstones, three to five feet thick, abounding in tertiary shells. When the supply is more limited, and the value of petroleum greater than now, it may pay, and pay well, to bore for petroleum near Melrose.

During Governor Throckmorton's administration, I visited some oil springs in the western part of Bell county, which were also coated with oil to some extent, but the supply was not as abundant as near Melrose. It may be proper to add, that the boring done at Melrose was by a Northern man, well posted in the oil matters of the oil