3fJ GEOLOGICAL STRUCTUBB Of THE 



fossil bones have been found in their immedin 

 neighbourhood, we should have been led to suppo 

 these springs to be in connection with ancient alluvial 

 deposits; while on the other hand, where the boring 

 and obtaining of salt water has been continued 

 through beds of coal and of limestone for some hun- 

 dreds of feet, every idea of alluvial origin must va- 

 nish, and we are led to consider the existence of 

 these saline springs as coeval with the strata in 

 which they originate, in common with the nitre, the 

 petroleum, and the coal. The occurrence of those 

 remains of extinct quadrupeds which are found in 

 their vicinity, may be considered as accidental, or 

 merely connected with their relish for salt.* 



The extent of these salt springs is nearly as wide 

 as that of the secondary rocks which they accompa- 

 ny ; thus they are found in several places along the 

 banks of the Mississippi, from the Prairie du Chien 

 to the confluence of the Ohio, wherever the intersec- 

 tion of streams have afforded them an outlet. They 

 occur along the banks of the Meremek near to St. 

 Louis, and along the Missouri to the Osage river ; 

 they are met with on the banks of this river almost 

 to its sources ; they reappear along the borders of 



* These relics are the bones of the common mammoth or 

 mastodon of the Ohio, the Siberian elephant, or true mam- 

 moth, teeth of the rhinoceros, and in the caves have been found 

 the bones of the megatherium, a very fine collection of which 

 we,re in the cabinet of the late Mr. Clifford of Lexington. 



