Geological Reports on the State of New York. 7 



bituminous substance already described, and the result was, that the gas 

 left the creek and issued through the shaft. By means of a tube, the gas 

 was now conducted to a gasometer, and from thence to different parts of 

 the village. The gasometer had a capacity of about two hundred and 

 twenty cubic feet, and was usually filled in about fifteen hours, affording a 

 sufficient supply of gas for seventy or eighty lights." 



Besides the bituminous slate, burning with a flame like that of 

 the gas, there is an alternating sandstone, containing every where 

 small cavities filled with petroleum, and giving out a bituminous 

 odor. This liquid substance appears to have been every where 

 originally diffused through both the slate and sandstone, and thus 

 to have imparted the peculiar characters. 



Gas appears to be generated and imprisoned below. It rises in 

 the banks when they are bored to the depth of twenty to thirty 

 feet, and it bubbles up through the water when it is low, but is 

 repressed when its height produces increased hydrostatic pressure. 

 Many of the wells in Fredonia are strongly charged with this gas, 

 and frequent disruptions of the strata evince the exertion of an 

 expansive force from below. The strata of slate and sandstone 

 are one thousand feet thick. This gas issues at long distances, 

 whose extremes are four hundred miles apart, and from strata from 

 fifteen hundred to 2000 feet thick. It is the opinion of Dr. Beck, 

 that this gas does not rise from coal beds, which by the views now 

 entertained of the geological structure of New York, are excluded 

 from its territory. 



Nitrogen iSpritigs. 



Nitrogen gas rises from waters, and from the ground in Rens- 

 selaer county, six miles southeast from Bennington, Vt., and Cha- 

 teauguay, Franklin county ; but the most remarkable nitrogen 

 spring in the State, is that of Lebanon, county of Columbia. 



" This spring is about ten feet in diameter, and four feet deep, and dis- 

 charges a large amount of water. Its temperature is uniformly 73° F., 

 while that of all the other springs in the vicinity is 52°. The water is 

 quite tasteless. Its specific gravity is scarcely above that of distilled wa- 

 ter, as it holds only a minute portion of saline matter in solution. The 

 following is the composition, according to the analysis of Dr. Meade, of a 

 pint of the water. 



Chloride of calcium, . - - - 0.25 grains. 

 Chloride of sodium, . - . . 0.44 *' 

 Carbonate of lime, - - - - 0.19 " 



Sulphate of lime, .... 037 " 



1.25 



