118 TKANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



voii- — and embraces within its general sweep the counties of Oiiondag^a, 

 Cayuga, Seneca, Wayne, Ontario, Yates, Livingston, Monroe, and the east- 

 ern portion of Genesee and north-eastern Orleans. 



The drainage of this region, it will be seen, is towards the north, and its 

 whole physical organization corresponds with this fact. 



The lakea upon its outer rim, forming extensive reservoirs of the purest 

 and most beautiful water, are elevated above lake Ontario from one hun- 

 dred and fifty to five hundred feet, according to their distance and direction 

 therefrom, as the elevation is greater and generally more rapid in a south- 

 erly and soiithwesterly direction ; and the slopes whose drainage supply 

 these reservoirs attain their greatest altitude and reach their summit level 

 between the water flowing to the north and finding their ultimate outlet to 

 the ocean through the St. Lawrence, and those flowing south and their final 

 source to the Atlantic through the Susquehanna, at elevations varying 

 from eight to twelve hundred feet above lake Ontario, which is two hun- 

 dred and thirty-one feet above tide-water. 



It is therefore most favorably diversified with valley, plain, hillside and 

 ridge, varying between the most productive depressions to that of the most 

 desirable thermal elevations, securing both sunlight and heat by day and 

 resisting nocturnal frosts, the fruit growers' dread and scourge, by the dry 

 atmosphere of the altitude in late spring and early autumn. 



On its northern and somewhat converging front are the tempered waters 

 of lake Ontario, while upon its outward semicircular rear lie the glittering 

 basins of the Oneida, Onondaga, Skaneateles, Owasco, Cayuga, Seneca, 

 Crooked, Canandaigua, Honeoye, Canadice, Hemlock and Conesus lakes, 

 ranging from sixty to forty miles in extent, north and south, and from a 

 mile to four miles in width, exerting a most beneficial influence upon the 

 temperature and salubrity of the climate, both by summer evaporations 

 and winter modifications. 



The geological structure is also equally favorable. It lies wholly upon 

 the secondary formation, and from Syracuse west to the Genesee, within 

 the area of the se-micircle, there is not a decomposing rock or a drift foi'm.a- 

 tion unfavorable to vegetable growth and perfection, adapted to the 

 latitude. 



From the saliferous rock containing or overlaying the salt deposits at 

 Syracuse, along and contiguous to the Erie canal westward, are found in 

 beds all the various mineral combinations which lime assumes from that of 

 shell marl beds, carbonate of lime, or common limestone, in all of its varie- 

 ties, including the cement or water lime and plaster of paris (sulphate of 

 lime), and all in great abundance, associated with their legitimate geolo- 

 gical rock strata and appearing at the surface in many localities to the 

 Genesee river, and also southerly and interiorly on the borders of the 

 Cayuga and along the outlets of the Seneca and Canandaigua and other and 

 various localities, in a manner to facilitate every demand of agriculture or 

 art that may arise for their use. 



In addition to tlie salt springs open and elaborately worked at Salina, 

 Monte/Aima and surroundings, there are mary other indications of similar 

 minerals throughout the canal route westward. We find the white sulphur 

 springs at Clifton, Ontario county, and the magnesian springs at Avon, 



