l6o NEW YORK 3tAtE MUSEUM 



the most part. There must be a host of these, and the connec- 

 tions between the different water-bearing crevices must vary 

 greatly in character. Some must be very direct and others ex- 

 tremely indirect. So long as they were controlled by the same 

 general hydrostatic head they would be expected to show close 

 sympathy in action, whether the connection were direct or in- 

 direct. With the loss of this general head, controlling the water 

 pressures in all the crevices, this close sympathy of action would 

 no longer obtain. Active pumping of a well might quickly and 

 notably affect the water level of a neighboring well, and not at 

 all alfect another well equally near to the first but in a different 

 direction from it. In the first case the underground connections 

 would be fairly direct; in the second case very indirect; but under 

 the circumstances the conclusion that there was no underground 

 connection whatever between the two wells, might not be justified 

 at all. 



Have the waters a common source? The carbonated waters 

 of the Saratoga region are peculiar. The abundance of carbon 

 dioxid, of sodium chlorid, and of calcium, magnesium and sodium 

 bicarbonates, and the almost entire lack of sulphates, gives them a 

 character which is possessed by few other natural waters the world 

 over. Taken together with their restricted distribution, this leads 

 irresistibly to the conclusion that they have a common source. 

 They distinctly impress us as mixed waters, waters which have 

 not obtained all their dissolved mineral matter at the same time 

 and place and which, probably in the latter stages of their under- 

 ground journey, have become diluted in varying degree with 

 fresh, surface waters. The varying degree of mineralization of 

 the waters of the different springs, when compared with one an- 

 other, is most simply and naturally accounted for in this way. The 

 statement which has been made in regard to some of the pumped 

 wells, that unusually prolonged and vigorous' pumping of a well 

 results in bringing to the surface brine of increased strength, seems 

 to us to point to the same thing. Under these circumstances less 

 dilution with fresher surface waters takes place than is normal 

 for the particular well. 



By a common source we mean that the original mineralization 

 of the waters takes place in a specific underground area of un- 

 known extent, owing to specific chemical reactions of unknown 

 nature, and that from this area the waters follow a definite route 

 to the surface, no doubt undergoing further mineralization on 

 their way. Our conception of the route is that from a deep-seated 



