54 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



out SO long an interval. The fault, too, while a very long one, has 

 only the slight disturbance of about 50 feet in Saratoga Springs. 



If we are impressed with the possibilities of sea water in the 

 rocks, and at first glance the generalities of composition suggest 

 them, we may query if the ancient seas are the only source. The 

 springs suggest rather the modern sea, with its high sodium chlorid, 

 than the ancient ones with high magnesium chlorid, as described by 

 Dr Sterry Hunt. Has the sea of fairly recent geological time ever 

 covered the region of Saratoga? 



We know from the rapidly growing number of buried river chan- 

 nels that the closing Tertiary period was a time of relative elevation 

 in the northeast. The bedrock on which the water once flowed is 

 now far below the present surface. The Glacial epoch apparently 

 opened with elevated conditions but closed with a great depression 

 of the land. Lake Champlain was certainly connected with the sea, 

 as was shown by the skeleton of a whale, dug out of a sand bank 

 in the town of Charlotte, Vt., when the Rutland and Burlington 

 Railroad was under construction. The railroad runs through 

 Charlotte at about 200 feet above tide, so that the sea water must 

 have stood above this level. The present divide between Wood 

 creek, the southern inlet of Lake Champlain, and the feeders of the 

 Hudson near Dunham Basin, is a little over 160 feet. The post- 

 glacial sea might so far as we can. see have crossed from Lake 

 Champlain to the Hudson, but whether it stood as high as the 300 

 or 320 feet contours on which the springs emerge is not demon- 

 strated, although not improbable. If the sea had stood above these 

 strata, they being presumably filled with earlier fresh ground water, 

 we may wonder if it could have found a way to fill their interstices, 

 and drive out the fresh water. Sea water is heavier than fresh, 

 and having access to the underground reservoirs of fresh water 

 would probably have at least diffused itself through them. We may 

 therefore admit that possibly an arm of the Atlantic stood in post- 

 glacial times above the present sites of the springs. 



But the hypothesis of the sea water deserves very earnest atten- 

 tion. Our only safe ground is to run some careful comparisons 

 between the mineral springs and the modern sea water, with perhaps 

 some further reservations regarding possible differences between the 

 oceans of today and those of the past. 



Analyses of sea water have been prepared in the greatest abun- 

 dance. Samples have been taken not alone from the ocean, but also 

 from estuaries and arms which may be only brackish. Analyses are 



