228 ORIGIN OK MINERAL SPRINGS. 



rock of miles in extent, and that large bodies, by a leaching of 

 the kind, may yield materials which, in the quantity used for 

 analysis, would be wholly imperceptible. Native sulphur, how- 

 ever, has been found in two localities with gypsum, one in 

 Onondaga, the other in Cayuga county. 



In the same group with the Sulphur Springs, but above them, 

 generally, and between the beds of gypsum, are the Hopper or 

 salt cavities, and the porous or vermicular rocks of Prof. Eaton ; 

 the pores of which were evidently due to a soluble salt, in which 

 occasionally. Hopper cavities are observed. This part of the 

 group is, withovit question, the outcrop of the som^ce of the salines 

 of Onondaga, and of Cayuga at Montezuma. The existence of 

 the Hopper cavities is highly satisfactory, showing the source 

 from whence the brine waters obtained their salt, and that the 

 origin of those waters was local. But for this fact, though the 

 connection between the salines and the group which contains 

 the gypsum be perfectly established, yet the same obscurity 

 would exist as to their source, as exists with the Sulphur Springs 

 of New York, to which a remote and volcanic origin was given. 



From the fact that thermal waters hold the lowest position, 

 we assert their connection with faults, by which they rise from 

 the source of their origin, placed between the Primary and Tran- 

 sition classes, the classes unconformable to each other, where 

 such springs exist, being undeniably the most favorable position 

 in our country for the manifestation of volcanic agency ; yet, as 

 their waters , are neither sulphureous, saline, or acidulous, they 

 negatively, as to their nature, oppose the view dissented from, 

 and positively, by showing that no connection or communication 

 can exist between the source of volcanic action, which must be 

 below that point, and the class to which the Sulphur Springs of 

 New York belong, as the thermal springs hold the intermediate 

 position. 



Secondly, that acidulous saline waters, as a class, occur next in 

 position above the thermal ones in the Hudson river group, and 

 when the rock is both disturbed, and undistm'bcd, showing a local 

 origin as to rock. These are followed at a higher level by the 

 brine springs of the Niagara or Medina sandstone, above which, 



