No. 275.] 
263 
there was fresh water, and below that point there was no salt water 
worthy of attention. 
At Salina, there are three wells or borings, all which are in the marsh, 
situated like the well at Liverpool, of 81 feet deep. The principal 
well is 72 feet deep. It passes through muck and lake marl, indurated 
clay and pebbles, thin €oating of gravel, sand and gravel. Its source is 
in gravel. This is the well which furnishes the greater part of the wa- 
ter used at the salt works. Its supply is most copious. 
A well, beyond or nearer to the lake, gave 6 feet of muck, and from 6 
to 6 feet of lake marl, which is the usual thickness of these two depo- 
sits; then marly clay, of about the insistence of soft butter, for 30 
feet, black sand about 35 to 40 feet, clay and gravel 2 to 3 ft et, coarse 
gravel, sand, &c. at the bottom, depth being 90 feet. The water of this 
well is strong, being 78 per cent even after being used for two or three 
days. The w^ell at Syracuse is an old boring. Its depth is 160 feet. 
It passes through the usual muck and lake marl, then sand and gravel 
-all the way. The water is what is called good. There is a natural de- 
fect in this well, which makes it less serviceable than the other w^ells. 
By pumping, its water soon becomes weaker, showing a ready admis- 
sion of the upper waters to the well or part from whence the water rises 
into the pump tree. The supply to this well is so copious that the well 
often overflows, yielding at the surface a water of from 20° to 25° in 
strength. This well is about midway between parallel lines of the Ged- 
des afid Salina wells, and it is said that salt water can be traced along 
its parallel upon the surface of the marsh for some distance, either by a 
white saline crust in dry weather, or by the samphire plant. 
There are two wells at Geddes, and according to Dr. Beck, one is 
124 feet deep, the other 176 feet. I could get no other information of 
the strata through which these borings are made, than that they consisted 
of alterations of green, blue and red shale. The " veins" of salt water, 
appearing in soft or porous layers. 
From these borings it is evident, that two kinds of materials are met 
with. The one appertaining to the group of the Onondaga salines; the 
other to the alluvial. In the one we find no pebbles, stones and sand, 
whilst that of the other is composed of like materials. 
The occurrence of brine in two distinct classes of materials, so wholly 
discordant, geologically, from each other, show at once a common source 
from whence the saline materials were derived. That these materials 
