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Acid Springs and Gypsum of the Onondaga Salt Group. 175 



In the Bohumilitz meteoric iron, the scales with the powder 

 amounted to 2*26 per cent., alone 1-3 per cent. 



Additional Note. — In order to obtain a sufficient quantity of 

 these scales, I had put my entire stock of iron (previously broken 

 up into fragments) into a small bottle — one of Faraday's wash- 

 ing-bottles — and had poured chlorohydric acid upon it, and had 

 closed the bottle by means of a small cork into which a long 

 narrow tube bent at an obtuse angle was adapted. After allow- 

 ing the action of the acid to continue 16 hours, I approached the 

 small flame of a spirit-lamp with a single wick, to the elbow of 

 the tube, in order to ascertain whether the hydrogen given off 

 contained arsenic, when after a short interval a violent explosion 

 took place shattering the bottle to pieces. 



That under these circumstances, in spite of the long continued 

 action of the acid, the bottle should be still filled with an ex- 

 plosive mixture of gases, is noways surprising, it is however re- 

 markable, that the gas thus formed should explode so very speedi- 

 ly upon the tube being gently heated. The explosion is probably 

 to be ascribed to the hydrogen, containing also sulphur or phos- 

 phorus, though perhaps only in minute traces. As the bottle was 

 completely broken to pieces, I was enabled to find again only 

 a few small portions of the meteoric mass operated upon, and 

 these were employed to obtain the scales. 



Art. XIV. 



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Onondaga Salt Group ; by T. S. Hunt, of the Geol. Survey 

 of Canada. 



Read before the American Association for the Promotion of Science. 



That portion of the upper Silurian system of New York, which 

 has been designated by the geologists of that state, the Ononda- 

 ga Salt Group, is characterized not only by the saline springs 

 to which it owes its name, but also by numerous deposits of gyp- 

 sum and springs which are sour to the taste and contain free sul- 

 phuric acid. The one at Byron, New York, has long been known, 

 and several others have been observed more recently in the same 

 geological district. The same region in Canada affords a remark- 

 able spring of this kind, which, in the course of my official du- 

 ties, I had occasion to examine in the month of October, 1847. It 

 is situated in the township of Tnscarora, in the Indian Reserve, 

 about twenty miles north of Port Dover, which is the nearest 

 point on Lake Erie. The water contains a large amount of free 

 sulphuric acid, about 4 parts in 1000, besides sulphates of the al- 

 kalies, lime, magnesia, aluminum and iron in small quantities. The 

 proportion of these ingredients is however not constant, as is ev- 



