ORIGIN OF BRINE SPRINGS. 
125 
In connexion with the inquiry into the origin of these brine springs, it deserves to be stated, 
that funnel-form cavities of various dimensions are observed every where on the high grounds 
which constitute the boundary of the Onondaga lake. Some of these have been formed at a 
very remote period, as is evident from the size of the trees found in them. Others are of more 
recent origin, and present the appearance of deep and perfectly regular wells or excavations. 
Dr. Benjamin De Witt, in a memoir on the Onondaga salt springs, states, “that at a distance 
of half a mile from the Salt Point (Salina), there is a pit lately sunk into the earth ; it is four 
or five feet wide, descends twenty feet perpendicularly, and then appears to take an oblique 
direction downwards.” “ This,” he adds, “ is supposed by some to have been caused by a 
vacuity underneath, produced by the solution of a body of salt in the waters which lead to the 
springs.”* 
I was so fortunate as to have the opportunity of examining a cavity of a similar kind, formed 
during the latter part of the month of May, 1837. It was on the grounds of Major Burnet, 
a short distance from the court-house, about half way between the villages of Salina and Sy¬ 
racuse. The cavity, at the time when I visited it, was fifteen or sixteen feet deep, and about 
ten or twelve feet in diameter, and had a roundish or oval outline. The sides of this pit or 
well were perfectly smooth, and it had the appearance of a work of art. At the depth of ten 
or twelve feet, there was a stratum of reddish indurated clay, which had been broken off and 
carried in an oblique direction downwards ; thus agreeing very well with the description given 
of a similar cavity by Dr. De Witt. Upon subjecting to analysis a portion of this clay, I found 
it to be composed, as already stated, of carbonates of lime and magnesia, alumina, silica and 
oxide of iron, together with minute portions of common salt and chloride of calcium. 
The formation of these cavities or sink holes may be explained upon the supposition that 
beds of some soluble mineral exist at considerable depths below the surface ; and that by the 
washing away of blocks or masses of it, a vacuity is produced, and the strata of earth, clay 
and rock, thereupon subside. But as these are by no means uncommon in limestone and 
gypseous regions, I was not prepared to attach much importance to their occurrence in the 
vicinity of the brine springs, until I found that they had also been observed near the beds of 
rock salt in Cheshire! and Worcestershire in England. 
Dr. Hastings, in the account of the salt springs of Worcestershire, already quoted, states 
the following fact with regard to the discovery of rock salt at Stoke Prior. Without the least 
apparent indication of the existence of this mineral, it seems that one of those person's called 
brine smellers , pronounced that there was salt in that vicinity. 
“ As to the rule,” says our author, “ by which the said Cheshire brine smeller determined 
that there was salt at Stoke Prior, I know nothing; but he attached great importance to what 
he called brine slips. By brine slips it appears that he meant a sudden slipping of the red 
marl which sometimes occurs about Droitwich. It not very uncommonly happens in this dis¬ 
trict, that on a sudden, a chasm will be formed twenty or thirty feet long, and a foot wide, 
* Tra?isactions of the Society of Arts, etc., of the State of Neiu-York. I. 268. (1801.) 
\ Holland. Survey of Cheshire, page 20. 
