100 ECONOMICAL MINERALOGY. 



to the inhabitants in their vicinity. In the strongest of these waters, the amount of saline 

 matter does not exceed three or four per cent. This locahty, however, is interesting in a 

 geological point of view, as it occurs in the second greywacke of Mr. Eaton, a formation 

 ' much older than that in which the great brine springs of the State are found. 



In nearly the same parallel of latitude with the preceding, in Delaware County, a brine 

 spring was discovered in 1833. It is situated upon Elk brook, about four miles from the vil- 

 lage of Delhi. We are informed that a well has been bored four hundred feet in depth, three 

 hundred and fifty feet being through rock ; and that during the boring, several veins of brine 

 were struck, from which some salt has been manufactured. Mr. Mather states that carburet- 

 ted hydrogen is constantly rising in bubbles through the brine ; and that the water, when kept 

 for a few days, snjells like free iodine — a substance which he thinks it may contain in some 

 quantity.* 



In Oneida County, brine springs occur near Vernon Centre, and again about nine or ten 

 miles west in the same county. These, according to Mr. Eaton, are the first brine springs in 

 the red or saliferous rock of Western New-York ; and here, as at various other localities, 

 they are accompanied by carburetted hydrogen gas, which, in some cases, is evolved in large 

 quantities. 



At Lenox, in Madison County, a brine spring was discovered some years since, of such 

 strength as to induce several persons to believe that it might be advantageously employed in 

 the manufacture of salt ; but these anticipations have not been realized, and the locality de- 

 serves to be noticed only in the geographical view which I am now presenting. 



A short distance west of the preceding, brine springs have been found at intervals for up- 

 wards of a hundred miles, in a range a little west of north. Thus at the Triangle in Broome 

 County, salt water occurs, and the salt obtained from it is of great purity. Brine is said 

 also to exist in the County of Cortland. We next come to the celebrated springs of Onon- 

 t)AGA County, to be particularly described hereafter. And finally there are, in nearly the 

 same range, several weak brine springs in Oswego County. One of these occurs in a marsh 

 in the town of Hastings, four miles west of Central Square. Two miles west of this is an- 

 other, while at Central Square is still another. None of these salines, however, are of much 

 importance, as the amount of saline matter which they contain seldom exceeds twelve ounces 

 in the gallon of water. Similar salines exist also in the towns of Constantia, Richland and 

 Hannibal in the same county. 



Mr. Vanuxem remarks, that from the eastern part of Oswego county, to the Niagara river, 

 numerous brine springs are found in the red sandstone ; and that these, of which there are 

 several in Oswego, yield the same kind of sharp tasted salt, resembling salt petre, and all 

 highly coloured by oxide of iron ; characters different from those of the salt of the brine 

 springs which belong to a subsequent deposit, and which show a difference of source, or con- 

 tamination from being deposited with a different rock.f 



 Nae-York Geological Reports, 1840. t Ibid. 1839. 



I 



