270 
teiit subject to the draiaage of a reservoirj known by the well at Syra- 
cuse, to be over 160 feet deep, and extending north and south to dis- 
tances not known. 
In this report, I do not assert that rock salt has no existence within 
the district, for no proof is known that it does not, or proof that it 
does. It is very certain that the surface of the hill between Salina and 
Syracuse exhibits proofs innumerable of the removal of a soluble mine- 
ral; the species remains yet to be determined. I did not examine the 
cavity which Dr. Beck describes, havmg left it for another period. 
There are but three abundant minerals which are soluble in water, 
carbonate of lime, gypsum and common salt. Each of them produce 
sink holes, in consequence of this property. It is not at all impossible, 
that salt in abundance may have been deposited near the sink holes, for 
such is the position of the hopper cavities and the porous rock, all which 
long since have been removed from the permeable nature of the gypseous 
hills. This is the hill which crosses the Fort-street road, where dubious 
rocks were observed, and which I have no doubt owe their nature to u 
high grade of thermal, if not an igneous temperature. 
The fact of the difficulty of obtaining water in the gypseous hills, 
unless by sinking to the level of the water courses, show that there is 
little probability of finding salt above the level of the waters, from ha- 
ving long since been dissolved; but below the water levels no such ob- 
jection can exist, if we except such portions as the drainage to the an- 
cient excavations may have removed. The place, then, to bore for salt 
is below the level of the waters, in that portion of the third deposit 
which contains the hopper cavities and porous rocks, which from the 
dip of the whole group, must be sought south, and not north of Syra- 
cuse. 
Montezuma Brine Springs. 
In the present report, we shall say but little of this saline, so ma- 
ny of our pages having been given to Onondaga, from the desire to 
contribute our mite towards making known its true history. 
From the report of Dr. Beck, it would appear that the three wells 
or borings were all in the alluvial; the first about 100 feet in depth, the 
second 80, the third 121 feet. This latter, the new well to which the 
section given by Mr. Conrad, in his report of this district, belongs. By 
the section, it appears to have been sunk in 77 feet of alluvial and 44 
of the lower gypseous or second deposit of the group, salt water having 
