1865.] CHEMISTRY OF NATURAL WATERS. 295 



in this paper none are from this eastern basin, although the unal- 

 tered portions of it present several mineral springs, some of which 

 are described in the Geology of Canada. Of these, the salines of 

 Cacouna, Green Island, Riviere Ouelle and Ste. Anne, are bitter 

 waters belonging to the first class ; while a sulphurous spring at 

 the latter place, and another at Quebec are alkaline waters of the 



fourth class. 



§75. Of the waters of the western basin, whieh alone are no- 

 ticed in this paper, many have been qualitatively analyzed which are 

 not here described. Including two from Vermont, twenty-one al- 

 kaline waters of the third and fourth classes have been examined. 

 Of these, as already stated, the waters of Caledonia rise from the 

 Trenton group, and that of Fitzroy from the Chazy or Cal- 

 ciferous, while two others, at Ste. Martine and Rawdon, appear to 

 have their source in the Potsdam. All the other waters of these 

 two classes issue from the Hudson-River shales, with the exception 

 of those of Varennes and Jacques Cartier, which seem to rise 

 from the Utica formation. 



Of the waters of the second class, of which about thirty have 

 been examined from the western basin, some five or six issue from 

 the shale formations Nos. 5 and 6, but all the others are from 

 the underlying limestones. The bitter salines of the first class flow 

 from the limestones of the Trenton group, with the exception of 

 that of Aneaster, which is from a well sunk in the Niagara formation, 

 and that of St. Catherines, from a boring carried through the Me- 

 dina down into the Hudson-River shales. The source of both of 

 these is probably, like that of the other very similar waters, the 

 Lower Silurian limestones. 



§ 76, From this distribution of the waters of tne first four classes 

 it would appear that the source of the neutral salts, which consist 

 of alkaline and earthy chlorids, is in the limestones and other strata 

 from the Potsdam to the Trenton inclusive, while the alkaline car- 

 bonates are derived from the argillaceous sediments which make 

 up the Utica and Hudson-River formation. These sediments are 

 never deficient in alkaline silicates, whose slow decomposition yields 

 to infiltrating waters (§ 13) the alkaline carbonates which charac- 

 terize the mineral springs of the fourth class. These, mingling in 

 various proportions with the brines which rise from the limestones 

 beneath, produce the waters of the second and third classes in the 

 manner already explained. The appearance of several springs of 

 the third class, as those of Caledonia and Fitzroy, from the Lower 



