most all ftry craters become lakes 
filled with water, whets their ig- 
neous activity is spent. 
All springs are smaller out- 
lets of water, while the fuma- 
roies and holes of igneous volca- 
noes, are small outlets of smoke, 
fire, air, gazes, hot mud, &c. I 
can perceive no essential diffe- 
rence between them or any other 
eruptive basin, except in the de- 
gree of caloric or kind of mat- 
ter which they emit They may 
both be quiescent or in activity. 
Springs vary as much as volca- 
noes. We have few, pure springs 
they commonly hold mineral sub- 
stances; they are cold, warm, 
hot, salt, bitter, saline, bitumi- 
nous, limpid, colored, muddy; 
perpetual or periodical, flowing 
or spouting. Just like volcanic 
outlets. 
Therefore volcanoes are pro- 
perly igneous springs, and 
springs or lakes are aqueous vol- 
canoes! 
Under this view, we have no 
lack of volcanic outlets in North 
America, since one half of it, the 
whole boreal portion, from New 
England and Labrador in the 
East, to North Oregon and Alas- 
ka in the West, and from Lake 
Erie to the boreal ocean, is filled 
with them, being eminently a re- 
gion of lakes and springs: cov- 
ered with 10,000 lakes at least. 
: To these as well as to the dry 
lakes of our mountains, the lime- 
stone craters and sinks— -may be 
traced as the original outlets of 
our secondary formations, in a 
liquid state under the ocean, im- 
bedding our fossils. The basal- 
tic, trapic and carbonic forma- 
tions have the same origins, since 
they are intermingled. But some 
kinds of sands and clays have 
been ejected since this qontinent 
became dry land. 
18 
To trace all these formations 
to their sources, delineate their 
streams or banks, ascertain their 
ages and ravage pn organized 
beings, will require time, assidu- 
ity, seal, and accurate observa- 
tions. 
What connection there is be- 
tween lakes or dry basins of primi- 
tive regions, and their formations 
is not well ascertained. Some 
are evidently the produce of crys- 
tallization; but others forming 
streams, veins, hanks and ridges 
may have been ejected in a fluid 
or soft state before organic life 
had begun, and thus spread into 
their actual shapes. Many 
streams of primitive limestone, 
anthracite, Wake, grit— are pro- 
bably so formed and expanded. 
Hollows in the primitive ocean 
must have been the outlets of 
these substances* now become 
lakes after the land became dry. 
The power which rises apd 
ejects out of the bowels of the 
earth, watery, muddy and solid 
substances, either cold or in- 
flamed is one of the secrets of na- 
ture; but we know that such a 
power or cause exists, since we 
see it in operation. Water rises 
in lakes and springs much above 
the level of the ocean, while the 
Caspian sea is under that level. 
There is then no uniform level 
for water on the globe, nor uni- 
form aerial pressure over them® 
Another cause operates within 
the bowels of the earth to gene- 
rate and expel liquid and solid 
substances? perhaps many causes 
and pow r ers are combined there. 
Galvanism is probably one of the 
main agents. A living power of 
organic circulation, would ex- 
plain many earthly phenomena. 
The great astronomer Kepler 
and other philosophers, surmised 
that the earth was a great living 
