QUATERNARY DEPOSITS. 
233 
dark limestone rocks, and limestone slate and shale; the next, the argillaceous slates and 
shales ; the inferior ones being of primary rock, and the light colored coarse sandstone; of 
the truth of which facts, there are few farmers in the State who have not knowledge. 
Mineral Springs. 
These are numerous in the district, and of considerable variety. They are of importance 
in many respects, besides the purposes to which many of them are applied by man : they 
show the soluble substances of the rock from which they issue ; and they furnish mate¬ 
rials for filling the joints and other fissures and cavities of rocks, to which all veins both of 
metallic and of stony minerals owe their origin. Many obtain their mineral contents by sim¬ 
ple solution, such as the brine springs, the proof of the existence of common salt being shown 
by the hopper cavities associated with the gypseous masses. Others, such as the sulphur 
springs, are not so readily explained ; for though the essential element exists in pyrites com¬ 
bined with iron, and few rocks are without this mineral, yet I am not aware that any satis¬ 
factory explanation has been given of the mode by which the sulphur is separated. That a 
separation is effected by natural processes other than by heat, is certain from its being found 
as a crust lining cavities where pyrites existed. Besides the source of sulphur in pyrites, it 
exists also in small particles in the group of rocks wherever springs of that kind are most nu¬ 
merous and copious, being found in the plaster quarries on Cayuga lake near Springport, and 
near Camillus in Onondaga county. Since the sulphur is combined with hydrogen at all 
the different mineral springs in the district, it is certain that water is decomposed, the hydro¬ 
gen being the immediate solvent of the sulphur. 
The subject of mineral springs properly belongs to the mineralogical department of the 
survey; and Dr. Beck, in his usual way, will give ample information of them. In some 
points of view, such as the rocks from whence they issue, and their origin, they are more 
properly the subjects of this report, and to such it will be confined, giving what is to be said 
in a very brief manner. 
The connection between certain kinds of rocks and mineral springs, is far more intimate 
than would appear to the casual observer. Thus, for example, where primary rock alone 
exists, be the country where it may, we have no brine springs; and those of other kinds of 
salts, and the sulphur and acidulous springs, are so rare, and their waters so small in quan¬ 
tity, as to be almost unworthy of note ; neither do they give origin to thermal waters, though 
the lowest in the whole series which form a part of the visible surface. They give rise to 
some chalybeates, but proverbially the waters which issue from primary rocks are the purest. 
The class of the carbonated saline springs in New-York is confined wholly to the Hudson 
river group, and includes the Saratoga and Ballston springs, and the waters obtained by 
boring at Albany and near Hampton in Oneida county, and are found in this State in no other 
rock or group. 
Geol. 3d Dist. 
30 
