159 
of the class to which it belongs. It holds in solution sulphu- 
ret of sodium, or in common parlance, sulphuretted hydrogen 
and a free alkali. Below the Cragg, in Erringden, is another, 
slightly charged with the same gas, which I found to be 
nearly free from all saline matter. There are the St. Helens 
Holy-well at Stainland, the Swift Cross Spa in Soyland, the 
Upper Ellistone's farm well in Greetland, the Booth Dean 
Spa, near the rocking stone in Rishworth, and the Widdup 
Ochre Spring in Heptonstall. These several springs, how- 
ever, with two or three exceptions, being found, I believe, to 
vary with the temperature, dryness, or moisture of the seasons, 
may be regarded as the local products of certain strata per- 
meated by atmospheric humidity. 
The Horley Green spring is of a different character, and 
must have a specific notice. 
The substances held in solution by these springs, to be re- 
garded as of geological importance, are, silica, iron, lime, 
magnesia, alumine, and soda, all of which enter largely into 
the composition of the solid crust of the earth ; and variously 
associated with these bases, are the carbonic, sulphuric, and 
hydro-chloric acids. 
Considered under these heads, the town water already al- 
luded to, derived from three springs, is an example containing 
silica, and to the absence of chalk and Magnesian Limestone 
in our district as a formation, we are indebted for its admir- 
able fitness for domestic purposes. Over the grit and Hali- 
fax gravel is commonly a loose black peaty soil, but a sandy 
loam covers the flag and free stone of Northowram, South- 
owram, and North-east Elland. Has this clayey accumula- 
tion arisen from the disintegration of the one kind of rock, 
and production of the peaty vegetable soil been favoured by 
the other ? We are justified in general in an affirmative an- 
swer to this question, but, in the present instance, the line of 
demarcation is so distinct that a few yards across the Hebble 
