104 
ECONOMICAL MINERALOGY. 
It is well known that the principal brine springs in this county cluster around the margin 
of Onondaga lake, a fine sheet of water about six miles in length and one mile in width. The 
water of this lake is not, as has been stated, salt at the bottom, but is fresh throughout.* The 
salt water, found every where on the marsh which forms the boundary of the lake, is prevented 
from communicating with the fresh water, by a bed of marl from three to twelve feet in thick¬ 
ness, below which is a stratum of marly clay. 
There are at present on the marsh surrounding this lake, several wells and pump works for 
the raising and distributing of brine, under the direction of the State authorities, at the villages 
of Salina, Syracuse and Geddes, and on the Oswego canal near the village of Liverpool. 
Salina Wells. There are three or four wells or shafts at the village of Salina, from which 
brine is obtained. They are from seventy to seventy-five feet in depth; and the brine is 
raised by means of forcing pumps into reservoirs sufficiently high and capacious to supply the 
works at this village, and they formerly also frequently supplied the works at Syracuse and 
Liverpool. According to observations made in July, 1837, the pumps at Salina raised four 
hundred and eighty-two gallons of brine in a minute, or twenty-eight thousand nine hundred 
and twenty gallons in an hour. This amount, however, is supposed to have increased greatly 
since the new shafts have been sunk. The present Superintendent, Mr. Spencer, states that 
the three new shafts sunk in 1840 afford a large supply of excellent brine of a maximum 
strength of 75°, which, however, is reduced during the summer to 65°.f 
The old Salina well was opened sixteen or seventeen years since. The brine from this I 
have carefully examined ; but its composition probably does not differ, except in the proportion 
of the ingredients, from that which has recently been brought into use. 
The temperature of the Salina brine, during its passage from the pumps into the reservoir, 
is 50° F., which is probably very near the temperature at its source. The brine is perfectly 
limpid, and has a somewhat sparkling appearance, owing to the escape of a small quantity of 
carbonic acid which it contains, and which holds in solution a minute portion of the carbonates 
of lime and of iron. 
Nutgalls and ferro-cyanate of potash, when added to the brine recently drawn, exhibit the 
changes of colour which are due to the presence of a salt of iron ; but they have not the least 
effect upon the brine after it has been exposed for a few hours to the air. Indeed, even when 
kept in a well-corked bottle for eighteen hours, these tests produced scarcely any effect. This 
is owing to the fact that the iron exists in the form of carbonate, and is held in solution by an 
excess of carbonic acid, and in this state causes the changes of colour which are produced 
when the proper tests are added; but when this excess of carbonic acid escapes, as it does 
by the exposure of the brine to the air, the oxide of iron falls down in reddish flocks, and the 
tests then produce no effect. 
* In the paper on these springs, which I published in 1826, it was stated that the water of Onondaga lake was salt at the bottom, 
on the authority of Dr. B. De Witt. It now, however, appears, from repeated observations and experiments, that this is not the 
case. 
t Report of the Superintendent and Inspector of Salt in Onondaga County. January, 1841. 
