No. 200.] 
25 
not as has been stated, salt at the bottom, but is fresh throughout.* The 
salt water found every where on the marsh which forms the boundary 
of the lake, is prevented from communicating with the fresh water by 
a bed of marl, from three to twelve feet in thickness, below which is 
a stratum of marly clay. , , 
There are at present on the marsh surrounding this lake, four wells 
and pump works for the raising and distributing of brine, under the di- 
rection of the State authorities, viz : one at Salina, another at Syracuse, 
a third at the village of Geddes, aud a fourth, recently completed, on 
the Oswego canal, near the village of Liverpool. 
Salina Well. — The well at Salina, which was opened twelve or thir- 
teen years since, is seventy feet in depth, and from it, brine is raised by 
means of forcing pumps to a reservoir sufficiently high and capacious to 
supply the salt works at this village, and occasionally also those at Sy- 
racuse and Liverpool. In consequence either of the greater power of 
the machinery, or the more abundant supply of brine, this well affords 
a larger quantity than any, or indeed than all of the others. According 
to observations made about the middle of July last, the pumps at Sa- 
lina raised four hundred and eighty-two gallons of brine in a minute, or 
twenty-eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty gallons in an hour. 
The temperature of the Salina brine during its passage from the 
pumps into the reservoir is 50° F., which is probably very near the 
temperature at its source. The brine is perfectly limpid, and has a some- 
what sparkling appearance, owing to the escape of a small quantity of 
carbonic acid which it contains, and which holds in solution a minute 
portion of the carbonates of lime and of iron. 
Nutgalls and ferro-cyanate of potash, when added to the brine re- 
cently drawn, exhibit the changes of color which are due to the pre- 
sence of a salt of iron; but they have not the least effect upon the brine 
after it has been exposed for a few^ hours to the air. Indeed, even 
when kept in a well corked bottle for eighteen hours, these tests pro- 
duced scarcely any effect. This is owing to the fact that the iron exists 
in the form of carbonate, and is held in solution by an excess of carbo- 
nic acid, and in this state causes the changes of color which are pro- 
duced when the proper tests are added; but when this excess of carbo- 
nic acid escapes, as it does by the exposure of the brine to the air, the 
* In the paper on these springs, to which reference has already been made, I stated that the 
water of Onondaga lake was salt at the bottom, on the authority of Dr. B. De Witt. It now, 
however, appears, from the repeated observations and experiments of Judge Ford and other* 
that this is not the case. 
I Assem. No. 200.] 4 
