16 
[Assembly 
In confirmation of this view, a fact mentioned in Townson's Hun- 
gary is also adduced, viz: that the lowest beds of marl in the great salt 
mines of Wielicza are mixed with salt in small patches and cubes. If 
water were to percolate slowly through this bed, the salt would be dis- 
solved, and cubic and other cavities left in the marl, if of a texture 
sufficiently compact, which would then present a similar appearance to 
the beds above described. 
But this theory, although so plausible at first sight, does not, it ap- 
pears to me, satisfactorily account for the formation of the large and 
solid crystals found at Camillus. The occurrence of mere cavities may 
perhaps be well enough explained in this manner, but it should be re- 
collected that the entire stratum of several feet in thickness is a mass 
of crystals. It is worthy of suggestion, that these crystals, although 
they have the form of those of common salt, may have had this form 
impressed upon them by a very small admixture of that substance. 
Thus it is known that when a small portion of solution of sulphate of 
iron is added to a solution of alum, and the whole allowed to crystallize, 
the sulphate of iron assumes the octahedral form of the alum, although 
these octahedral crystals contain scarcely a trace of the latter salt. As 
igneous action was probably concerned in the consolidation of this rock, 
it is in perfect accordance with the above fact to suppose that the crys- 
talline form of this clay may have been derived from a small portion of 
salt which they formerly contained. It is certain that this clay is com- 
posed of carbonate of lime, silica, alumina and oxide of iron, but does 
not contain a trace of common salt.* Its occurence therefore cannot 
be considered of sufficient importance to warrant the conclusions which 
have been drawn from it concerning the origin of the brine springs. 
Eleven years since I ventured to assert, as the result of an examina- 
tion of the Onondaga springs, that the most plausible theory was, that 
they originated from a solution of beds of fossil salt.f This opinion, 
although quite generally adopted by those who are most familiar with 
the history of these springs, w^as nevertheless opposed by some indi- 
viduals for whose views on subjects of this nature I entertain the high- 
est respect, and I therefore feared that the grounds upon which it rested, 
were insufficient. But after the most careful review of the subject du- 
ring the past season, I have again been brought to the conclusion, that 
There is a clay found in the immediate vicinity of this crystallized stratum, which is often 
incrusted with crystals of sulphate of magnesia. A specimen which I analyzed, contained in 
addition to the carbonate of lime, silica, alumina and oxide of iron, about twenty per cent, of 
carbonate of magnesia. The hopper form crystals may also sometimes contain the latter salt, 
t New- York Mediical and Physical Journal, v. 176. 
