ALLUVIAL DIVISION. 
95 
Saratoga Springs. 
Dr. John Steel, long a resident physician at Saratoga, has given an accurate account of 
these springs.* Professors Eaton and Lewis C. Beck, Dr. Meade and others, have repeatedly 
examined them; and as Prof. Beck, the Mineralogist of the Geological Survey, has reexa¬ 
mined them, his report will contain many details that will be unnecessary and out of place in 
this, which is devoted to those facts immediately connected with geologv. 
The mineral waters of Saratoga have become celebrated for their medicinal qualities, and 
for their agreeable acidulous taste, and are now resorted to annually by thousands. The 
springs are mostly situated in a low marshy valley near a ridge of limestone, and rise from a 
bed of blue marly clay that underlies the valley and the sandplains of the vicinity. The water 
sometimes rises from the clay, sometimes from a fissure or seam in the underlying limestone, 
and sometimes from a layer of quicksand. At the depth of thirty or forty feet, the clay is 
underlaid by a stratum of boulders. 
All the mineral fountains at the village, more than twenty in number, possess the same 
general qualities; varying in strength, or relative proportions of the mineral constituents, and 
the presence or absence of some particular substances. The High-rock spring is justly consi¬ 
dered as one of the natural curiosities of our country. It has been long known, and was 
highly valued by the aborigines of the country, but has never been described except perhaps 
in the newspapers, until described by Dr. John Steel in the American Journal of Science,! 
where a drawing is given to illustrate its appearance. (Vide Plate 35.) Dr. Valentine Sea¬ 
man, in 1809, published an imperfect drawing of it, which is believed to be the only other 
one that had been published; and in his description of this spring, he says, “ The more we 
reflect upon it, the more we must be convinced of the important place this rock ought to hold 
among the wonderful works of nature. Had it stood on the borders of the Lago d'Agnano, 
the noted Grotto del Cani, which burdens almost every book w'hich treats upon the carbonic 
acid gas since the peculiar properties of that air have been known, would never have been 
heard of beyond the environs of Naples ; while this fountain, in its place, would have been 
deservedly celebrated in story and spread upon canvass, to the admiration of the world, as one 
of its greatest curiosities.”! 
The marshy valley in which the mineral springs are situated, is bounded on both sides by 
steep banks, twenty to forty or more feet high; that on the east being composed of sand and 
gravel beds, overlying the clay, and that on the west, of loam, sand and gravel, reposing on 
limestone (the Calciferous group), which is exposed in some parts of the village. The banks 
have been cut down and the marsh filled in, in some places, so as to modify the original form 
and appearance of the ground. From the base of both banks, opposite the southern end of 
* Steel. Silliman’s Journal, Vol. 16, pp. 242, 246. t Ibid. pp. 341, 345. 
t Dissertation on the Mineral Waters of Saratoga, 1809 ; and Silliman’s Journal, Vol. 16, pp. 341, 342. 
