120 
ECONOMICAL MINERALOGY. 
edly belongs to the saliferous series, is made up entirely of these crystals, varying in size from 
one to eight inches. One of these crystals, which I analyzed, has the following composition : 
Carbonate of lime,. 26.25 
Carbonate of magnesia,. 19.35 
Oxide of iron,. 4.65 
Silica and alumina, or clay,. 49.75 
Sometimes, however, the proportion of the carbonates is larger; the crystals having their 
surfaces covered with an incrustation of pure carbonate of lime, and their bases slightly rhom- 
boidal. After an attentive examination of this interesting locality, I was led to the conclusion 
that these had originally been crystals of common salt which had been dissolved out, and the 
moulds thus formed again filled with clay, and subsequently incrusted by the percolation of 
water charged with the carbonate of lime. That this latter process has been going on exten¬ 
sively, is evident from the enormous quantities of calcareous tufa which are found in the 
immediate vicinity. 
A writer in the Philosophical Magazine and Annals of Philosophy, in 1829,* from a review 
of the facts stated by Mr. Eaton, thinks the water limestone intimately pervaded with the 
chloride of sodium, which the moisture of the atmosphere, acting upon an exposed specimen, 
and the water of the springs acting upon the rock in situ, extracts and dissolves. Hence 
carbonate of lime is found in these brines, while the brines of the Cheshire and Droitwich 
springs in England, which arise from the direct solution of rock salt, to which no carbonate 
of lime is immediately contiguous, are either entirely free from it, or contain only a minute 
proportion. 
The same author suggests that the crystals of chloride of sodium, which formerly existed 
in the strata, were deposited at the era of the formation of the saliferous rock, by the same 
agency which in other parts of the world produced beds of rock salt; and the salt has simply 
been dissolved out at a subsequent period by the percolation of water through the superin¬ 
cumbent strata, leaving impressed in the rock cavities bearing the forms of the crystals; and 
such, without doubt, he affirms has been one source of the brine springs of this district. 
In confirmation of this view, a fact mentioned in Townson’s Hungary is also adduced, viz. 
that the lowest beds of marl in the great salt mines of Wieliczka are mixed with salt in small 
patches and cubes. If water were to percolate slowly through this bed, the salt would be 
dissolved, and cubic and other cavities left in the marl, if of a texture sufficiently compact, 
which would then present a similar appearance to the beds above described. 
But this theory, although so plausible at first sight, does not, it appears to me, satisfactorily 
account for the formation of the large and solid crystals found at Camillus. The occurrence 
of mere cavities may perhaps be well enough explained in this manner, but it should be re¬ 
collected that the entire stratum of several feet in thickness is a mass of crystals. It is worthy 
of suggestion, that these crystals, although they have the form of those of common salt, may 
Supposed to be E. W. Brayley, junior. 
