No. 200.] 
17 
of all the theories which have been proposed to account for the forma- 
tion of these springs, there is none so free from objection as that which 
ascribes it to the solution of beds of fossil salt. 
I will now briefly state some of the facts which favor this view, and 
notice some of the objections which have been urged against it. In the 
outset, however, it should be observed that most of them are applicable 
to the immediate vicinity of the Onondaga springs; nor does it follow 
as a matter of course, that if fossil salt exists in their vicinity, it must 
necessarily be found near all the brine springs of the western region 
which have been enumerated. There are many instances of the occur- 
rence of brine springs in England and France, at a considerable distance 
from any hitherto discovered bed of salt; and it is only when the brine 
has attained a certain degree of strength that this mineral is to be looked 
for in the immediate vicinity. 
A boring was made several years since at Vic, in the very centre of the 
saline district, in the department of La Meurthe, in France. They first 
passed through strata of free-stone and clay, intersected by veins of sul- 
phate of lime. At the depth of about fifty metres, the clay and sul- 
phate of lime which the borer brought up, began to be mixed with rock 
salt, and continued so till about the sixty-fifth metre, at which the bed 
of rock salt began. 
The account adds that at the present time (September, 1819,) the 
boring has reached to 85 metres; thus passing through more than twenty 
metres of salt, divided into three beds by the thin strata of sulphate of 
lime, and the borer continues to bring up salt. 
It may not be unimportant to observe, that in the neighborhood of 
this boring, brine springs had been worked before the christian era; and 
that the above is the only locality of fossil salt which is known in 
France.* 
In noticing the salt mines of Hallein,in Hung-ary, Beudant remarks: 
" We observe in the midst of these clays, beds of salt sufl^iciently large, 
grey or reddish, and containing in some places, pellets of argillaceous 
matter. We find especially fibrous gypsum, some veins of anhydrite 
and beds of a brown compact gypsum of a grey lustre, and somewhat 
scaly fracture."! 
* Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. XII, 48, or Repertory of Arts, second series, XXXVI, 186. 
t Voyage Mineralogique et Geologique en Hongrie, pendant L'annee, 1818. Par F. S. Beu- 
dant. I, 169. 
fAssem. No. 200 J 3 
