GREAT SALT MINE
which for several years furnished the most of the salt used in the Confederacy, in our civil war. The mine is on "Avery's Island," on the Gulf coast. Many years ago a boy returning from a successful hunt, threw the deer he had killed into the fork of a tree while he sought to slake his thirst at a beautiful spring. The water was so salty he could not drink it. On telling his mother about it, she had water brought from the spring and boiled and secured a good deposit of salt. Gradually the spring came to be used. After a while, farming interests absorbed the attention of the owner of the island, who by the way was a Yankee from New Jersey, who fled South with his negro slaves, when it became inevitable that the negroes North were going to be freed. How the South has been cursed about slavery: The facts of history show that Northern people are responsible. Not Southerners, but Northerners, stole the negroes from Africa and introduced slavery in the United States. When they found the institution didn't pay, they brought the slaves South and sold them to our fathers. Later they drenched the nation in blood to free the slaves their daddies had sold to us. Some few did as Col. Avery did: moved South with their negro slaves. (But to return to the Salt Industry.)
Gradually the salt springs were abandoned until our civil war, when salt began to bring $11.00 a barrel in New Orleans. The son of the planter asked his father for permission to run a kettle in boiling, to this was added other kettles, and so the mine developed. When the springs would not supply the water fast enough, a well was dug. Sixteen feet from the surface, what seemed to be the stump of an old tree was struck, covering the bottom of the well. Close examination proved it to be solid rock salt. The owner, Col. Avery, leased a part of the mine to the Confederate Government. It is said at the close of the war, he found himself the fortunate possessor of $3,000,000 of worthless Confederate money; besides this, he lost 2,000 bales of cotton, which the government had paid him for, worth in the market after the surrender from twenty-five to fifty cents per pound. The mines were captured by the Federals in 1863, but work was resumed after they left.
The mining goes on now on an extensive scale and great tunnels run through it many feet below the surface. The supply is practically inexhaustible. It has been explored by boring 1,200 feet down and the bottom of the salt bed is still below. How is that for a salty story! We passed
BEAUMONT
at night, much to my regret, but I learned the oil fields, which I hoped to catch a sight of, were five miles away. However, I felt the breeze, as every passenger who got aboard for a hundred miles in either direction was talking oil. I imagined I could almost smell and taste kerosene. You may be sure I heard of the "biggest" oil well. A little later I struck a cow-man. I don't know whether he was a "Cattle King" or not, but he could talk cows. I was glad to have him in the same section with me for he knew the country and could answer all my questions. Houston was passed in the night.
We breakfasted at
SAN ANTONIO
and found the town rejoicing over the breaking of a five month's drought by the rain which was then falling. One of the natives said: "You can't tell anything about rains here. They may stop in fifteen minutes or they may pour down for a week." We found it so, for in a few minutes after leaving San Antonio, the clouds began to break and soon the bright sun appeared, but the rain had extended far to the west which was fortunate for the travelers. I was so impressed with what I read of the battle of the Alamo which took place near San Antonio. I will quote it. Some have read it before, but the most of your readers have not: