Phenix Gazette

A valuable Salt Spring has been discovered by boring, near Pittsburgh, on the opposite side of the Monongahela river. The depth reached by this process was 627 feet, and the stream of salt water rises to a height of thirty feet above the level of the earth, and at the rate of seven thousand gallons in 24 hours, of strength sufficient to make twelve or fifteen barrels of salt. The following is the account given in the Pittsburgh Gazette, of the progress of the boring through the various strata of coal, clay, slate, sandstone, &c.

In boring, they struck the first rock, a kind of slate, at the depth of thirty-three feet, which continued for eighty-eight feet, variegated in color, some red, like red chalk; some perfectly white, all pretty much alike in substance. They then came upon sand stone, of a grayish red color, which continued, with occasional interruptions, for ninety feet. They next came upon another vein of slate, very like the first, and variegated in the same way; and immediately below this they found a stratum of limestone seven feet thick, the only limestone discovered. From this down to about 590 feet they passed generally, through a kind of rotten, dark grey sand stone, with occasional shells of harder sand stone, with portions of iron. The next thirty feet was very hard boring—the first ten of these was through a perfectly white and very hard sand stone. Struck salt water 625 feet, but not enough; went two feet deeper, where they got the vein now relied upon. When the chisel struck this last vein, it fell about two and one half inches, thus indicating the depth of water.

In their progress they passed through the following strata of coal—

Found gas at every vein of coal, except the first, which continued to discharge three or four weeks from each vein. Mr. Murray thinks that the gas now discharged would light an establishment larger than the Exchange Hotel in this city

At 133 feet struck a vein 10 inches thick
•	280	do	3½ feet thick.
•	440	do	3½ do
•	480	do	3½ do
•	580	do	3½ do
•	602	do	4 inches.