| OCR Text |
Show SALT PLAINS. Hundreds of Square Miles of Them in Oklahoma. (Kansas City Star.) Sixteen miles from Augusta, now assuming assum-ing importance as a new railway terminus, termin-us, lies the smallest of the two great salt plains of Oklahoma. Its area embraces nearly 100 square miles. It measures ten miles east and west and across its center cen-ter and twelve miles north and south. The salt deposit is from one inch to four inches deep. Its' elevation is 1,320 feet above sea level, is about the average of Woods county. No trust seeks to control it, and the sun, which shines for the poor as well as the rich, never entirely shuts down its evaporating plant. In the desert are saline springs, the source of pools and lagoons la-goons where the water spreads in the sun s rays and passes away in vaDor. leaving the salt deposit. The shifting winds of centuries have blown this salt beyond the natural boundaries of the pool, yet ten years shows verv little encroachment en-croachment on the tillable land around. During hot days one of the most active springs deposits salt in the form of an ant hill, from the apex of which a tiny stream of saline water trickles down, leaving a seamed, porous base. The action of the wind completes the work and a column of chlorate of sodium is formed, but does not stand long, for the erosion continues and the column soon breaks at the bottom and falls. With true American Ameri-can perseverance the little spring bepins again and the process is repeated. This curiosity has its arched tyoe in Holv Writ. Its coubriquet vf "Lot's Wife," however, does not nrove the hvpothesis that it is an exemplification of the ancient pinar or salt, which has none of these suggestive repetitions. When Lot found his wife transformed into a pillar of salt he was wise enough to let it go at that and not take a fresh one. Over the west county line, in Woodward Wood-ward county, is another salt plain double the size of the one near Augustus. Blocks of salt cut In Woods county have been exhibited in Augusta, and government tests show them to be 98 per cent Dure, and possessed of the same properties and strength as sea salt. This saline product of the plains is too far from a railroad now to be available for commercial purposes, pur-poses, but previous to the settlement of the Cherokee strip hundreds of fat cattle cat-tle grazed on the nutritious buffalo grass which grew close un to the saline deposits; de-posits; they were never known to stray far, and cattlemen came from a distance and carted away bis loads of salt for herds grazing elsewhere. On first sight the salt appears like a lake of shimmering water. The view inspires in-spires a vision of foam-crested waves rippling rip-pling over the sand. In the davs when Oklahoma was known as the 'oromised land" many an emigrant, plodding along by a jaded team in the arid heat of midsummer, mid-summer, has been one of these two salt plains and shouted for joy. Expecting to hear liquid sighs from tiny waves lapping idly against wet sand, nothing breaks the silence of the lonesome waste save the crunch of booted feet in the dry salt. Last December, while crossing the edge of one of the saline plains, a caravan happened In the path of a storm. The lowering clouds of blackness made a grim setting for the silvery white plain. The horses, heated from exertion in the previous prev-ious warm air, shivered in the sudden change of temperature. The wind blast, icily cold, as though from the far north, put new life and vigor into man and beast. Dust rolled ud in a white cloud from which shrapnel. In the shape of coarse salt, which we thought to be sleet, bombarded bom-barded the eyes that dared watch the spectacle, and winnowed seasoning, sifted, superfine salt left a smarting in eyes and a salty taste on lips. |
