88 Notice of the Thermal Springs of North America. 



Art. X. — Notice of the Thermal Springs of North America, 

 being an extract from an unpublished Memoir on the Geology 

 of North America, read to the Ashmolean Society of Oxford 

 University, Nov. 26, 1838, and now inserted in this Journal, 

 by permission of the author. Dr. Charles Daubeny, Profes- 

 sor of Chemistry and Botany in the University of Oxford. 



Thermal Waters. — In the State of New York, twenty miles 

 east of Albany, near the Shakers' village of Lebanon, occurs a 

 spring possessing a constant temperature of 73° Fahr. 



It emerges from the junction of talcose slate, with an impure 

 schistose limestone, containing though scantily, organic remains, 

 namely, five species of Fucoides, trilobites, &c. There is a 

 fault in the vicinity of the spring. This thermal water has been 

 frequently analyzed, but nothing of importance has been detected 

 in its composition ; it emits copiously bubbles of gas, which I col- 

 lected on the spot, and found to contain no trace of carbonic acid, 

 but to consist of nitrogen 89.4, oxygen 10.6. In the same 

 chain, as we proceed into the State of Vermont, we meet with 

 one or two other slightly thermal waters, as at Williamstown, in 

 Massachusetts, and at Canaan at the foot of the Green Mountains. 

 I am disposed also to consider the carbonated waters of Ballston 

 and Saratoga, which lie about fifty miles to the northwest of 

 Lebanon, as slightly thermal, for by reference to the table pub- 

 lished by the Regents of New York University ; it will be seen, 

 that Schenectady, the nearest post to these springs, at which ob- 

 servations are recorded, and situated a little to the south of them, 

 possesses a mean temperatiu'e of only 46.20° Fahr. 



I found at Ballston one of the springs to be 50.5, and the 

 other 49.5 ; and at Saratoga, the new Congress 49.5, Hamilton 

 Spring the same ; and Congress Spring 51. At both these local- 

 ities, gas was given oflf, consisting chiefly of carbonic acid, but 

 containing, after this had been removed in the usual way, a re- 

 siduary portion of air, in which nitrogen and oxygen were both 

 present, but with an excess of the former, as compared with the 

 proportion existing in the atmosphere. 



The next Groupe of thermal waters I shall notice is, that Avhich 

 occurs in Virginia, and here I am indebted to Professor William B. 

 Rogers, for directing my attention to the geological structure of 



