15 



in England and other countries are most of them wells or 

 pits of different depths, in some of which the brine stagnates 

 and never rises to the top, but flows out at the top of other 

 wells when it is not drawn out for use." From an exami- 

 nation of Karsten's "Lehrbuch der Salinenkunde," a most 

 valuable treatise, it may be concluded that natural brine 

 springs are rarely saturated, and that saturated ■ springs 

 rarely run to waste or flow copiously. I am confirmed in 

 this by a friend, a Deputy Salt Commissioner of India, who 

 has visited nearly all the salt districts of Europe as well as 

 India.* It will be evident from the facts given that nature's 

 operations on subterranean salt beds are not of a violent 

 character, but quiet and gradaal; hence it is that we so very 

 rarely are able to trace the wasting away of the salt beds 

 by subsidences on the surface. After a lengthened and 

 careful research I have not met with any clear and dis- 

 tinct evidence of any surface subsidence caused by 

 natural brine springs. Undoubtedly there is waste by 

 the water but it is so small and so gradual that 

 in a lifetime it is not perceptible. Were there any 

 perceptible waste shown by the surface subsiding it 

 must have been mentioned in some of the various works 

 treating on salt.*f* I here may mention that Ormerod, and 

 after him several other geologists, have attributed the for- 

 mation of the Cheshire meres to the action of fresh water 

 on the underlying beds of salt, and the escape of the brine 

 springs into the streams. This is merely a hypothesis 

 which other geologists dispute. I think the thing possible, 

 but I doubt very much its probability. However, I will 

 not discuss the matter here. Again, in Kohat, on the 



* He says, " I do not know of a single case of a saturated brine spi'ing 

 running to waste, and I never saw or heard of such a thing in the trip I 

 took through Europe expressly to vist all the salt sources." — R. M. Adam. 



t R. M. Adam says, " In reply to your enquiry I have to say that I have 

 never seen or heard of brine springs wMch flow into rivers or into the sea 

 causing subsidence of the land." 



