Excerpt from Report of a Geological Survey of the Vicinity of Belle Plaine, Scott County, Minn Sir - In pursuance of an appointment from Governor Austin, dated St. Paul, March 30, 1871, Ihave made such geological survey in Minnesota, and especially in Scott county as seemed requisite to enable me to form an opinion of the prospect of obtaining brine at Belle Plaine, or in its vicinity, of sufficient strength to sustain the manufacture of salt. For the information of your company, I proceed to state the facts and general principles which have guided me to a conclusion. Common salt and its solution, brine, being a product of chemical reactions in the primeval ocean, and not, to any considerable extent, the result of recent causes, its original home was the ocean and as a geological product, its place is amongst the other sediments and precipitates of the sea, which make up the body of stratified rocks. With out pausing to explain the circumstances under which we believe the saline particles have become mingled with mechanical sediments in the progress of rock-making, it may be interesting to know that all formations since the begin ning of Palaeozoic Time, and not unlikely from an earlier period, are liable to be found saliferous. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.