168 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [June 



§ 40. The brines from the valley of the Alleghany River, obtained 

 from borings in the Coal formation, are remarkable for contain- 

 ing large proportions of chlorids of calcium and magnesium ; though 

 the sum of these, according to the analyses of Lenny, is never equal 

 to more than about one fourth of the chlorid of sodium. The 

 presence of salts of barium and strontium in these brines, and the 

 consequent absence of sulphates, is, according to Lenny, a constant 

 character in this region over an area of two thousand square miles. 

 (See Bischof, Chem. Geol., i, 377.) A later analysis of another one 

 of these waters from the same region, by Steiner, is cited by Will 

 and Kopp, Jahresbericht, 1861, p. 1112. His results agree closeb? 

 with those of Lenny. See also the analysis of a bittern from this 

 region by Boye (Silliman's Journal [2] vii, 74). 



These remarkable waters approach in character to those of Whitby 

 and Hallowell ; but in these the chlorid of sodium forms only about 

 one half the solid contents, and the proportion of the chlorid of 

 magnesium to the chlorid of calcium is relatively much greater 

 than in the waters from western Pennsylvania, where the magnesian 

 chlorid is equal only to from one third to one fifth of the chlorid of 

 calcium; the proportions of the two being subject in both regions 

 to considerable variations. 



In this connection may be cited a water from Bras d'Or, in the 

 island of Cape Breton, lately analyzed by Prof. How, which con- 

 tains in 1000 parts, chlorid of sodium 4-901. chlorid of potassium 

 0*650, chlorid of calcium 4*413, and chlorid of magnesium only 

 0*638, besides sulphate of lime 0*134, carbonates of lime and mag- 

 nesia 0*085, with traces of iron-oxyd and phosphates; =: 10*821. 

 (Canadian Naturalist, viii, 370.) The analyses of European waters 

 furnish comparatively few examples of the predominance of earthy 

 chlorids.* 



determining in the recent water, or in water not sufficiently boiled, the 

 lime and magnesia which would by prolonged ebullition be separated 

 as carbonates, together with portions of alumina, silica, etc. In the 

 subsequent calculation of the analyses, these dissolved earthy bases 

 being regarded as sulphates or chlorids, instead of carbonates, thero 

 remains an excess of soda, which is wrongly represented as carbonate, 

 instead of chlorid, or sulphate of sodium. 



* Lersch, Hydro-Chemie, Zweite Auflage : Berlin, 1864; vide?. 207. This 

 excellent work, which is a treatise on the chemistry of natural waters, in 

 one yolume 8vo. of 700 pages, was unknown to me when I prepared the 

 first part of this essay. 



