43 
[Assembly 
imperfect combustion. When a current of it is made to pass through 
a solution of acetate of lead, no change of colour ensues: — Whence it 
cannot be mixed with sulphuretted hydrogen. 
Oneida Gas Springs. — Carbonated hydrogen gas issues through a 
crag or gravelly soil about a mile west of the village of Vernon, in 
the county of Oneida. According to Prof. Eaton who made seve- 
ral trials in July 1823, it issues through a spring of water at the 
rate of a gallon in a minute; he states that he observed it " issuing from 
several small masses of water along the foot of the same hill; which 
naturally induced a belief that it rises from the earth in all parts of seve- 
ral acres of ground adjoining the chief spring. The underlying rocks 
are fields or patches of ferriferous rock, resting on the saliferous rock. 
The gas burns with a flame of a reddish white colour, and blue at the ' 
base."* 
Ontario Gas Springs. — In Ontario county there are several places at 
which the same gas is evolved in considerable quantities. These in- 
flammable springs, as they are called, are observed on both sides of 
Canandaigua Lake and w^ithin three miles of the village of the same 
name. But the most noted locality is in the town of Bristol, about 
nine miles W. S. W. from Canandaigua, and seventeen or eighteen 
miles south of the Erie Canal at Perrinton. It occurs in a ravine on the 
west side of the valley of Mud creek, which is here called Bristol Hol- 
low. The sides of the ravine, as well as the borders of all the valleys 
in its vicinity, are formed of a blueish grey shale. 
Dr. Hayes, from the experiments which he made upon this gas, con- 
cludes that it consists principally of the light and heavy carburetted hy- 
drogen, and that it contains carbonic acid, but no sulphuretted hydrogen. 
Mixed with a small proportion of olefiant gas obtained from alcohol, 
and inflamed in a proper burner, it forms a brilliant gas light. 
The same gentleman describes another locality still more remarkable 
on the south eastern side of a valley called Federal Hollow, one mile 
from Rushville and about twenty-one miles from the canal at Palmyra. 
" For a space extending along the valley, from northeast to southwest 
more than half a mile, and in some places more than a quarter of a mile 
in breadth, numerous springs of inflammable gas have appeared. In a 
field near the northeastern extremity of this tract, and . at an elevation 
of forty or fifty feet from the bottom of the valley, several hillocks may 
be seen of a few inches in height, and from two or three to ten or twelve 
* Silliman's Journal, XV. 236. 
