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MEDINA SANDSTONE. 45 
color : the taste owing probably to muriate of lime and the color to iron. This objection could 
probably have been obviated, had the strength and quantity of the brine been sufficient to war¬ 
rant the undertaking. 
There were never, so far as I have learned, very extensive operations carried on at these 
brine springs. The borings have rarely been made to any great depth, and the quantity of 
water being small, the fixtures have been temporary, and, from disuse, nearly every spring 
visited had become filled with fresh water. In a few cases the destruction of vegetation 
around, and the saline taste of the earth, fully indicate the presence of salt. 
I have not been able to satisfy myself that deeper boring was always attended with an in¬ 
crease in the strength of the brine, though in a few cases this has been recorded as the fact. 
At St. Catharines, U. C., where a boring of five hundred feet was made in this rock, I was 
informed that the strength of brine increased with the depth; but here, as well as elsewhere, 
the work has been abandoned.* 
From the situation of numerous springs of this kind which I visited, and which are upon 
level ground, or in depressions having little or no outlet, I am disposed to believe that a depres¬ 
sion in the rock, with the exposure of much surface, concentrating its saline matter in one 
point, is required for their production. In the greater nuniber known to me, the discovery 
was made by the saline water rising to the surface, but in many instances it was found by 
excavating or boring into the rock in places where no salt spring was previously known ; and 
in almost all cases where excavations have been made in the lower division of this mass, the 
water is more or less brackish. From these facts we have almost conclusive evidence that 
this deposit, throughout its whole extent, is impregnated by saline matter. 
A fact of this kind has lately come to my knowledge, through Judge Allen of Saratoga. 
During the extreme drought of the summer of 1841, the wells situated upon this rock in many 
towns m Orleans county became dry, and they were in consequence excavated or bored to a 
greater depth ; and in nearly all cases the water proved to be in some degree saline, and in one 
case so much so as to warrant the erection of fixtures for the manufacture of salt. Most of 
these wells were in situations where salt water had never before been known to exist, and 
furnish another fact in evidence of the wide distribution of the saline ingredients. 
Agricultural characters .—The soil overlying this rock, from the varying nature of the mass 
below, is of the same character. In the eastern part of the district it is a sandy loam, or in 
numerous instances sandy ; the argillaceous nature of the rock increasing in a westerly direc¬ 
tion has given rise, generally, to sandy loam. Limited tracts are sandy, and other portions 
are again of a clayey nature. Whenever the rock approaches the surface, the soil is a heavy 
mixture of clayey loam and fragmentary matter; proper cultivation, however, mollifies this 
nature, and it is considered among the most fertile soils of the district. From the fact that 
* I find the following record in my notes, made at St. Catharines. Depth of boring 500 feet. Water at 300 feet 27° ; at 429 
feet 29°. but this increase in specific gravity was not constant, and it is not certain that the water increased in stienglh on de¬ 
scending. 
