20 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



waters will remain in them. If they are lacustrine, fresh water will 

 be absorbed. The common brines found by the drill in old marine 

 deposits are undoubtedly connate, but their preservation is largely 

 due to being inclosed between impervious beds above and below. 

 When we deal with fresh-water sediments the connate waters do not 

 have great difference in composition from the ordinary meteoric 

 ground waters. In judging of marine connate waters it is important 

 to bear in mind that some geologists think the sea to have been a less 

 concentrated solution in its early history, and in the very remote 

 times represented, for instance by the Grenville series of the Sara- 

 toga section, that it was comparatively fresh. Rivers have indeed 

 been pouring into it their burden of dissolved materials and as 

 these are not removed by evaporation, except to the extent in which 

 they are driven over the land in spray caught up from breaking 

 waves by the wind, the conclusion has followed that the sea is like a 

 great evaporating pan, constantly becoming more concentrated. One 

 line of attack upon the problem of estimating the age of the earth 

 has been to assume fresh-water oceans and calculate from the known 

 composition and volume of rivers the time required to bring the 

 oceanic waters up to their present concentration. 



On the other hand, there are geologists, notably Edouard Suess in 

 Vienna, and R. T. Hill in New York, who urge that the oceans 

 themselves were fed by magmatic waters from volcanos or their 

 equivalents, in the early history of our planet, and that, as is well 

 known regarding some volcanic waters, the salt was also furnished 

 in this way. These views are at least worthy of respect ; they 

 seriously affect calculations of the age of the earth, although they 

 do not conflict with the belief in weaker oceanic waters in the re- 

 mote past. Connate waters underground almost inevitably are sub- 

 ject to admixtures of meteoric ground waters. 



THE COMPOSITION AND CHARACTER OF TPIE SARATOGA 



WATERS 

 Having established the general conceptions regarding under- 

 ground waters, we may next take up the composition of the local 

 mineral springs and their place among mineral waters as found 

 in nature. Many analyses have been prepared in the last seventy- 

 five years or more and a considerable number within the last ten. 

 A few introductory remarks may be made upon analyses in general 

 and the methods of reporting the results, before the actual waters 

 are discussed. 



