Revieivs — Dr. Chandlers Lecture on Water. 477 



mountains, a brief account of which is given in the report. The 

 structure of Mount Washington seems to be that of an inverted 

 anticlinaL The rocks composing the area are believed to belong to 

 two great systems, the Grneissic or White Mountain series, and the 

 Andalusite Eocks or Coos group, which overlies the other. Both 

 are presumably Eozoic. 



With the approval of the State authorities, the Survey undertook 

 to investigate the meteorology of Mount Washington, the highest 

 point of land within the State, and about 5000 feet in elevation. 

 Tables of observations are given, and a short report is furnished 

 by Mr. S. A. Nelson. 



A more detailed account of the work of the Survey will be 

 hereafter published. 



VI. — Leotuee on Water, delivered before the American Institute of 

 the City of New York, in the Academy of Music. By Charles 

 F. Chandler, Ph.D., Professor of Analytical and Applied 

 Chemistry, School of Mines, Columbia College. (Albany : The 

 Argus Company.) 



DE. CHANDLEE'S discourse, while aiming at providing popular 

 instruction, contains much that will interest the scientific reader. 

 In the first portion of his lecture he treats of the constituents of pure 

 water, and the history of their discovery ; then a description of 

 spring water and its impurities leads him to speak of artesian wells. 

 At Louisville, Ky., there is one 2,086 feet in depth, yielding water 

 with a temperature of 82° F., and so highly charged with chemical 

 compounds that it is prized for its medicinal properties. At Charles- 

 ton, S.C., there is a well 1,250 feet deep of similar mineral water. 

 On page 14 there is a statement which requires correction. The author, 

 when speaking of the precious metals dissolved by sea-water, states 

 that their presence was detected by their being taken up by some 

 "iron nails in the keel of the vessel," and their per-centage was ex- 

 ceedingly small. The Doctor possibly had in his mind the analyses 

 that were made of the copper and Muntz metal from the hulls of 

 vessels plying between ports along the west coast of South America 

 made by Field, who found that an appreciable amount of silver was 

 extracted from the sea-water of that region during a few years' ex- 

 posure. In describing the brine-wells of the United States, he 

 enables us to realize their importance, by telling us that the brine 

 pumped from the artesian wells at Syracuse, State of New York, 

 from a depth of from four to five hundred feet, has produced nine 

 millions of bushels of salt in a single season. Tlie celebrated springs 

 of Saratoga and Ballston rise along the line of a fault in the rock 

 of Saratoga county. They consist, to begin with the uppermost, of 

 the Hudson river and Utica shales and slates, the Trenton limestone, 

 a siliceous limestone, the Potsdam sandstone, and the Laurentian 

 rocks of unknown thickness. The Laurentian hills being impervious 

 convey their surface waters to the exposed edges of the Potsdam 

 beds, whence the soluble matter is derived. One spring, on the 

 margin of Kayaderosseras Creek, contains 1,200 grains of mineral 



