THE MINERAL SPRINGS OF SARATOGA 53 



The mineral matter resembles sea water and is supposed to be 

 derived from ancient oceans. 



Others, supporters of a second view, derive the waters as before, 

 but reject the derivation of the waters' dissolved burden from the 

 rocks. They think it reaches the fault relatively pure and then is 

 charged with mineral and gaseous constituents, which have come up 

 through the fault from the internal fires of the earth. The sub- 

 stances are those customarily given off by volcanoes. 



In a valuable " History of Saratoga County " by Nathaniel Bart- 

 lett Sylvester, Esq., of the local bar, published in 1893, will be found 

 on page 32, the following outline which summarizes very well the 

 views held by many at this date regarding the springs : 



The principal mineral springs of Saratoga county occur mostly 

 in the villages of Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa. The village 

 of Saratoga Springs, where the greater number of the springs 

 occur, is built directly over and extends for its whole length along 

 on both sides of the dividing lines between the two great mountain 

 systems above described, the Laurentian-Adirondack to the north 

 and w^est, and the Appalachian to the east and south. 



This dividing line between the two mountain systems, over and 

 along which the village is built, is J:here characterized by a deep 

 fissure or rift in the underlying strata, known to science as a fault. 

 The fault was doubtless caused by the deep subsidence of the 

 Appalachian strata along the division line, consequent upon the 

 mighty upheaval to the eastward, when the mountains arose from 

 the Silurian sea. This profound subsidence of the Appalachian 

 strata along the division line sank the bottom waters of the Silurian 

 sea, which covered the land with all of its accumulated marine 

 riches, into a vast abyss which now underlies the village to the east- 

 ward of the rock fissure. Out of this reservoir of old marine 

 treasures, the gases there engendered still force the waters, which 

 bring these marine riches with them, up through the deep fissures in 

 the rifted rocks into the light of day, thus forming the natural 

 mineral springs of Saratoga, which rise to the earth's surface in 

 Saratoga county. 



Again, on page 160, the same view is repeated in briefer state- 

 ment. Judge Sylvester's description in its quaint and precise legal 

 phraseology makes clear the widespread view of recent years that 

 the Silurian sea water had saturated the rocks and that it had 

 remained in them ever since so as to now furnish the mineral waters. 

 We are forced to modify our unqualified acceptance by recalHng 

 Dr T. S. Hunt's conclusion that these ancient waters had a radically 

 different composition from that of the springs (see above, pages 50, 

 51). One can not but raise the question also, whether, inasmuch as 

 the area has apparently been land, it may be, ever since Paleozoic 

 time, the ancient sea waters could well have been preserved through- 



