184 THE MOUNTAIN. 



CANADA SPRINGS. 



HAVING noticed the most prominent mineral springs of 

 a number of the United States, it may be as well to finish 

 here the record, as far as the Eastern side of the continent 

 is concerned, by some account of the springs of Canada, be- 

 longing to that class. 



In the Report of Sir William E. Logan, Provincial Geo- 

 logist, and his assistant, Sterry Hunt, of the Survey of Ca- 

 nada, (for 1857,) many mineral springs are registered and 

 described. It appears that the great palaeozoic basin of 

 Canada is divided into two secondary basins by an axis ex- 

 tending from Daschambault, on the St. Lawrence, in a di- 

 rection west to Lake Champlain. The eastern part is 

 affected by undulations and different kinds of disturbances, 

 and is the region already noticed as being the site of nearly 

 all the mineral springs of Canada; the western or undis- 

 turbed basin having but few medicated waters. Hunt 

 arranges the waters in two classes, "neutral and alkaline; 11 

 the first with chlorides of magnesium, calcium, sodium ; and 

 the second, all of these earthy bases in the form of carbon- 

 ates and silicates, the water being alkaline from the pre- 

 sence of carbonate of soda. The few waters of the "upper 

 Silurian are all neutral, as also those from the limestone of 

 lower part of lower silurian; while the alkaline waters 

 characterize the schistose strata which constitute its upper 

 portion." The schists of "Hudson River group 17 are 

 "argillaceous, the analysis showing them to be of Feld- 

 spathic rocks, containing 3 or 400ths of alkalies, which they 

 slowly give up to the decomposing action of infiltrating 

 waters. " In this way the neutral waters of the underlying 

 limestone have their earthy chlorides decomposed, and are 

 converted into alkaline waters, which are still strongly sa- 



