GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS, 



The Original Saltness of the North American Lakes. 



THE remains of marine animals in the soil and rocks ad- 

 jacent to the lakes, may be cited as proofs that the ocean 

 once filled the basins of the latter and covered the surface 

 of the former. Lithophytous and testaceous relicks are 

 so plain and numerous, that it is impossible to resist the 

 evidence. Organic remains abound in the greater part 

 of the distance from lake Erie through the counties of Ni- 

 agara, Genesee, Ontario, Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga. 

 They exist plentifully too in the counties of Lewis, Jef- 

 ferson, St. Lawrence, Madison, Essex, Oneida, Montgo- 

 mery, Washington, Chenango, and various others. 



At the remarkable sulphureous spring in the town of 

 Phelps, eleven miles northwest of Geneva, they appear 

 like corallines arid madrepores. On both sides of the Ge- 

 nesee and Tonewanto rivers, they resemble marine shells. 

 While on the east and west banks of Niagara river, they 

 assume, in addition to the already enumerated forms, those 

 that have erroneously been called petrified wasps' nests 

 and honey-combs. They are hereabout mostly bedded 

 in fetid limestone. Sometimes they are blended with 



