No. 200.] - . ' 15 
is the occurrence, in the saliferous rock, of hopper-form cavities and 
crystals, resembling those of salt formed during an intermission in the 
application of heat, and commonly known by the name of Sunday salt. 
There are several localities in which these curious productions can be 
examined. In some cases the hopper-form cavities only are to be found, 
but in others there are entire strata of regular crystals. Of the latter, 
the finest exhibition that I have seen, is on the route of the Auburn and 
Syracuse rail-road, about half a mile from the village of Camillus; 
where for some distance the marly clay, which undoubtedly belongs to 
the saliferous series, is made up entirely of these crystals, varying in 
size from one to eight inches. In their dry state they contain sixty or 
seventy per cent of carbonate of lime, mixed with alumina, silica and 
the oxide of iron. Some of them have their surfaces covered with an 
incrustation of pure carbonate of lime, and have their bases slightly* 
rhomboidal. After an attentive examination of this interesting locality 
I was led to the conclusion that these had originally been crystals of com- 
mon salt which had been dissolved out, and the moulds thus formed 
again filled with clay, and subsequently incrusted by the percolation of 
water charged with the carbonate of lime. That this latter process has 
been going on extensively, is evident from the enormous quantities of 
calcareous tufa which are found in the immediate vicinity. 
A writer in the Philosophical Magazine and Annals of Philosophy, 
for 1829, from a review of the facts stated by Mr. Eaton, thinks the 
water limestone intimately pervaded with the chloride of sodium, which 
the moisture of the atmosphere, acting upon an exposed specimen, and 
the water of the springs acting upon the rock in situ^ extracts and dis- 
solves. Hence, carbonate of lime is found in these brines, while the 
brines of the Cheshire and Droitwick springs in England, which arise from 
the direct solution of rock salt, to which no carbonate of lime is imme- 
diately contiguous, are either entirely free from it, or contain only a 
minute proportion. 
The same author suggests that the crystals of chloride of sodium, 
which formerly existed in the strata, were deposited at the era of the 
formation of the saliferous rock, by the same agency, which in other 
parts of the world produced beds of rock salt; and the salt has simply 
heen dissolved out at a subsequent period by the percolation of water 
through the superincumbent strata, leaving impressed in the rock cavi- 
ties bearing the forms of the crystals, and such without doubt, he affirms, 
has been one source of the brine springs of this district. 
