144 Seientifie Intelligence. 
e name adopted by Mr. Pumpelly for the principal part of the 
ruptiv ‘ks is melaphyre—as defined in the recent work on 
ialoay of Rosenbusch. The name has had almost as many uses 
as there are writers that have used it, and it would be better 
if it were banished altogether from science. By optical means, 
e occurrence of oligoclase and albite, as enrages of some 
varieties of the “ melaphyre” is infer red, and also the presence of 
some orthoclase. But this application of patie metho 
of distinguishing the feldspars to the examination of thin slices 
of such rocks is acknowledged by the er to athe agi 
results; in fact, it is of almost no value. T makes 
little use of chemistr y in the Seierininatios of the oouiaeitaionit 
minerals. 
5. Discovery i Rock Salt at Wyoming in Western cde York. 
—-In a communication from Mr. James Macraruan to the 
Syracuse Tinsnivads on the 29th of last June, the ver ‘siponvlin 
of a b 
salt group, New York, (middle of the Upper Silurian). e 
locality i is thirty-seven miles south of Rochester, on the Rochester 
d State-line Railroad. The boring passed ‘first through 660 
feck of shales of the Genesee, Hamilton and Marcellus groups; 
then 110 feet of hard rock, reported as sandstone or limestone ; 
then 80 feet of hard limestone, when salt water appeared; below 
this, 380 feet of “ hard and soft rock, limestone and shale” belong- 
ing to the Corniferous limestone of the Upper Helderberg and the 
Water-lime, and to the limestones and shales of the upper part of 
the Onondaga salt-group; next, 1,240 feet down, a layer of soft 
shales 20 or 30 feet thick was passed through, and ‘then, ze a 
depth of 1 te feet, she bed of rock salt was struck. It 
thickness ol 70 feet : 7 this, 40 or 50 ene consisted of pure salt) 
and the rest was more or less mixed with earth; but whether the 
earthy pacatiehr were way to the sviesinee of layers of shale, 
or to fragments of rock carried in by the boring is not ascertained. 
The boring was continued to a depth of 1,530 feet, through ae 
cent red shales and red sandstones of the salt group, and t 
Niagara Gadeetbne was reached at 1,562 feet. Dr. Enge sinned 
the chemist of the Syracuse salt companies, has visited be gre 
and taken specimens of the rock salt for analysis. It is n 
sed to bore on the south aes of the Syracuse valley, since here 
is 3 Lisi of striking the same bed; it would be necessary to 
carry the boring down only a few hundred feet to settle the ques- 
tion. Success would substitute a mine of rock salt of indefinite. 
extent for weak brines. 
6. Description of the Wilcox Spouting Water- Well ; by 2 
A. Asupurner, M.S., Assistant Geol. Survey, Penn. —The Wilco 
Spouting Water-Well for the last nine months has attracted mis 
siderable attention, from the immense columns = water and gas 
which are periodically bps seven minutes) t up into air 
to a height of from 115 feet. The re is located in the 
valley of West Clarion Creek , just north of the southern boundary 
