124 THE MOUNTAIN. 



trious, intelligent, and enterprising people, anxious to de- 

 velop her mineral resources of every order, after the 

 expenditure of immense sums of money, and the laborious 

 efforts for years of some twenty gentlemen of highly respect- 

 able intellectual endowments and undoubted scientific attain- 

 ments, have been denied access to the results of the explora- 

 tions of this corps, until the existence of such results was 

 mythical, and they had come to be regarded as eternally 

 forbidden fruits. 



The aggregated labors of the accomplished and indefati- 

 gable men forming the corps of the Geological Survey of 

 Pennsylvania, will soon appear in the form of the final 

 report of that survey, which, with the original survey, has 

 now, strange to say, been in progress nearly a quarter of a 

 century. 



When this achievement, so long and ardently prayed for, 

 shall have been fully realized and actually accomplished, by 

 the finished, final report being handed at last to the people 

 of Pennsylvania, it is to be hoped it will awaken a new spirit 

 of inquiry with regard to her mineral resources, and repro- 

 duce, in these times of despondency and industrial paralysis, 

 a new tidal wave of healthy progress and sound expansion. 

 Will it not also excite a new interest in, and impart a new 

 impetus to, the practical application of the waters of the 

 State, to the whole class of uses originally designed by 

 nature ? 



Commencing below, and at the base of the group of 

 palaeozoic formations, we are presented with a few valuable 

 springs in the metamorphic rocks or gneissic group. 



The waters of these rocks have not attracted the attention 

 they deserve, and have received, in some of the neighboring 

 States, where they are found to be of a valuable character. 

 Proceeding upward, in the rock series, we find in the first 

 large limestone formation, (No. 2,) a number of springs. 

 Some of these are of great volume ; the rocks being soluble, 

 the waters which fall in the valleys gradually wear deep 

 subterranean sewers and caves ; the springs are frequently 



