HYDROLOGY. 119 



The coal-seams and associated shales contain sulphur and 

 iron in a state of chemical combination, called sulphuret of 

 iron, or pyrites. The chemical decomposition of this mate- 

 rial, in these rock masses, gives rise to several varieties of 

 mineral waters. First, to waters containing the salts of 

 iron, or proper chalybeate waters. Secondly, to acidulous 

 waters, or those which contain free sulphuric acid; and 

 thirdly, to proper sulphur waters, or those which contain 

 sulphuretted hydrogen in a state of solution, constituting 

 the celebrated sulphur waters of writers on mineral springs. 

 From some of the calcareous and magnesian masses we have 

 waters of another character, namely, waters containing salts 

 of the alkaline bases, or the class of aperient waters. 



We are thus presented, in the spring system of the Alle- 

 ghany, with an interesting group, showing almost every 

 stage of mineralization, from the pure and limpid water of 

 the sand-rock, to the highly-charged, earthy salt solutions 

 of the coal-seam and its accompanying slates. The moun- 

 tain, then, stands in the chapter of uses also as a great 

 laboratory, in which a number of waters, mineral and pure, 

 are produced ; and this alone would seem a sufficient end or 

 final cause for its existence. The student of another order 

 of values might pass its song of the waters with indifference, 

 and find in its coal-seams those magazines of wealth and 

 power to man, in its valuable forests and soil, its masses of 

 iron, and useful rocks the only objects worthy of his atten- 

 tion, and the only end for which it was desirable to create 

 the mountain at all. 'Tis thus to the partial and one-sided, 

 the narrow and utilitarian, that the world ever appears. 

 But such is the order of things, that " each end is a begin- 

 ning;" there are no private contracts, favoriteism and 

 selfishness being unknown in nature. The worm borer in 

 the stick of timber, and the human borer in the coal-seam; 

 the sap-sucker penetrating the bark of the sugar-tree, and 

 the salt-boiler perforating the brine-rock; the caterpillar 

 eating the leaves of the linden for bread, and the painter 

 sketching its foliage for beauty, may each suppose that the 



