No. 276.] 
285 
inches in 24 hours. The rods are indigo blue when drawn up; after 
standing some time they turn brown, or colour of iron rust." 
" We are now 550, and in the same blue or black limestone. When 
we struck limestone, water from the bottom of the well was, say 50°, 
and is about the same now, not more; the water, which runs away 
quickly from the surface, at the mouth of the well, is 20°. My own 
opinion is, there is no salt water in the shaft, except w^hat descends 
from the gravel beds above, and through the fissures and seams in the 
rocks, and they are frequent, and occur in the present lime strata." 
This information makes it certain that the red shale mass has been 
penetrated, first meeting with a thin sandstone bed, and then finally the 
dark blue shales and the black limestone of the protean group. In 
every locality east, where the connecting rocks can be seen, the lime- 
stone is followed and preceded by blue shale. This fact is evident in 
the ravine back of Dr. Noyes' house, near the college in Clinton, also 
on the road from Clinton to Waterville at Hart's mill, and on the creek by 
Rogers' machine factory, which empties into the Sauquoit. The " iron 
rust" of the borings in the limestone can be seen in many of its locali- 
ties. At the quarry back of what is called Turkey-street on the Ska- 
nandea, also in the road to the northwest of Skanandea village, and in 
most of the quarries of Onondaga and Cayuga, where the concretionary 
rock exists, for in altering by exposure to the air, it seems to contain 
iron and manganese, which is the cause of its brown rust. 
Between the blue shale above the limestone, there is a bed of green 
shale; this may have run out at Salina, or have been replaced by the 
sandstone met with, or not noticed; as Judge Allen observed in his let- 
ter, that at the depth of near 600 feet there is great difficulty in deter- 
mining changes, unless well marked difference of character existed, and 
for obvious reasons. 
LARDNER VANUXEM, State Geologist. 
