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Mineralogy

salt springs, especially below the Red Fork; we saw none, but were informed that fine springs existed on Big & Little saline rivers, on the "Two Rivers" &c where the salt is found in white efflorescences, so as to be annually collected there by the colonists of Pembina; notwithstanding which, at that settlement the price of this article is from four to six dollars per barrel weighing eighty pounds. One of the residents on the river cleared five hundred dollars in one winter by the salt which he collected. Probably by boring to a small depth abundant springs would be obtained."* In this remote region, however, salt would possess little value, beyomd what is necessary to supply the inhabitants in its immediate vicinity; especially as no direct communication by navigable rivers exists between that country and the great markets of the world.

* Long 2d Ex Vol 2 p. 39

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