Ko. 275.] 
271 
been found in connection with the whole of the strata. It was in the 
last five feet of the alluvial that a mass of granite of 500 pounds weight 
was discovered. 
North of Montezuma, in the Cayuga marsh of Superior, now How- 
land's island, a boring was made in 1827 and '28, by Mr. Howland, 
for the purpose of finding brine, as salt had been manufactured in con- 
siderable quantity on the opposite side of the river, on lot 54, in Wayne 
county. The boring was about 20 rods from the upland, in the marsh 
or swamp. I am indebted to Mr. Howland for the detail. 
First 5 feet muck; 6 feet marl, shells, white, pure; 4 feet clay, soft, 
blue, pure; 10 feet quicksand; 4 feet loose gravel; 11 feet sandstone, 
gray; 4 feet plaster, gray, mixed with white, some transparent; 20 feet 
dark stone, interspersed with white flint, sharp grit; 7 feet soft rock, 
interspersed with isinglass; 28 feet dark coloured stone, softer than the 
mass of 20 feet, but sharp grit; 25 feet blue, very soft rock, interspers- 
ed with white chalky substance, like salt or magnesia in appearance; 
36 feet soft sandstone, red, or red rock interspersed with one-fourth white 
chalky substance; total depth was 167 feet. 
There is no mention made of finding any salt water, but before 
reaching the 167 feet fresh water rose in the tube to the height of 3 
feet above the level of the swamp. 
The borings at Montezuma prove that for 80 feet, the brine is in the 
alluvial, which fact favors the existence of original alluvial excavations 
now appearing as swamps, marshes, and probably may even exist be- 
neath the gravel hills of that section of the country. 
The only person that I am aware of who has given an opinion of 
the saliferous group of Onondaga, which accords with the one I adopted, 
is Prof. Rafinesque. In his Atlantic Journal, vol. 1, p. 73, he places 
it amongst the salses, using the term which Spallanzani had applied 
" to the mud volcanoes of Italy w^hich commonly threw out salt water 
at the same time." It is impossible, consistently with order, not to 
view the group as a whole; for though its parts are different, yet they 
are not separable without destroying a certain harmony or unity, which 
results from the union of its parts. Regarding it with the eye of a 
chemist, we find that its prominent characters have been derived from 
the law of substances separating in the inverse order of their solubility. 
That which is least soluble is the first to deposit; that which is most 
soluble, the last. 
