160 
BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
(luce cavities correspondino- to the material removed ; but thoup^h 
saline spring-s are found at a number of places in New Brunswick 
(mainly in the Lower Carboniferous system of Kings county, as 
near Sussex and Salt Spring Brook), no actual beds of rock-salt 
are known to exist, and the land in their vicinity gives no indica- 
tion of the existence of considerable cavities. 
In the vicinity of gypsum beds the case is dififerent. Large 
deposits of the latter occur near Hillsborough, in Albert county, 
in the parish of I'pham. in Kings county, and on the Tobique 
river, in \ ictoria c(3unty ; and in each of these cases the district 
immediately surrounding the deposits is remarkable for the evi- 
dences of removal. These are usually in the form of pits or sink 
holes, though subterranean passages also exist. Near the plaster 
beds of Hillsborough the ground is honeycombed with these 
vertical holes, so closely aggregated in places and with such nar- 
row intervening walls as to make passage across both difficult 
and dangerous. 
i\Ir. C. J. Osman, H. V. P., manager of the Albert IManufac- 
turing Company, informs me that he has seen them fully forty 
or fifty feet deep, while in places, where they are covered with 
surface deposits, they are sometimes very large, extending in 
^diameter fully one hundred feet, with a depth of forty to fifty feet. 
He adds that the ])laster lands are covered with such depressions, 
and they are, without question, the result of the percolation of 
water through seams and fissures in the rock. These waters are 
sometimes seen issuing as springs of considerable volume below 
bluffs of gypsum rock, but as a rule the outlets are on the surface 
of the lower lying lands at the foot of the plaster hills. Even 
here iMr. Osman has found evidence of subsidence in what might 
be taken to be the extreme low level for drainage, and showing 
that there are still deeper subterranean passages. At wbat is 
known as the “ Sayre quarry," where a good deal of underground 
work has been done. iMr. Osman has found evidences of old 
water-courses, which, as he thinks, must be at least sixty or 
seventv feet below the original water level of the little lake which 
