A ROCK-BOWLED SPRING. 85 



slopes of this old pasture on such a morn as 

 this, or does the spirit of the desire to gain out- 

 weigh all thoughts of nature, even that which 

 is seemingly dormant yet ever silently working 

 in the soul of every man? 



The chief attraction which caused me to pitch 

 my tent where it now stands was the spring 

 which wells out of a bluff between two layers 

 of Knobstone about eight feet above the bed of 

 the branch. The water of this spring is chaly- 

 beate in nature; that is, it is richly charged 

 with a yellow, sulphur-like carbonate of iron 

 which forms a pendent fringe around the rim 

 of the bowl which the farmer has cut in the 

 stone to receive it. No purer, clearer, cooler 

 water occurs in any similar spring known to 

 me in the State and I have quaffed from hun- 

 dreds of them. To the country people they are 

 usually known as "sulphur springs/' on ac- 

 count of the sulphur-like hue which the mineral 

 ingredient assumes when exposed to the air. 

 Along the outcrops of the Knobstone they are 

 especially numerous, as that formation is rich 

 in carbonate of iron. The water of the wells 

 which pierce it is often surcharged with that 

 mineral, and then stains buckets and pitchers, 

 in which it is allowed to stand, a rusty brown. 

 Several of these springs well forth along the 

 bluffs in both this old pasture and the one to 



