Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/37

Rh surface through the various crevices with which the fault is environed, or make its escape through subterranean channels to unknown outlets; in either event the result is due to the simple law of gravitation and hydrostatic pressure, the bodies of water stored in the lakes, ponds, and rocks of the higher altitudes furnishing the necessary causes to produce this result.

To substantiate this theory, attention is called to the close resemblance existing between the leading chemical constituents of these waters and sea-water; it being claimed that the mineral matter of the rocks, through which the waters percolate, was deposited from very ancient oceans, the existence of which was contemporaneous with the period that embraces the deposit of the geological formations to which the various strata of this region belong. Those that advocate the second theory with regard to their origin agree with the adherents of the theory that has just been presented, in recognizing the elevated section situated west of the village and the fresh water that flows from it through the various strata as being the prime source from which these mineral springs are derived, but decline to accept the theory that their constituents are obtained by the percolation of the fresh water through the rocks, maintaining that the water remains virtually unimpregnated until the fault is reached, and that it is at this point that it becomes charged with both its mineral and gaseous constituents; claiming that, inasmuch as the fault extends downward to an unknown depth, and to the internal fires of the earth, and that the substances with which these springs are impregnated closely resemble those evolved in a gaseous state from volcanoes, that the mineral constituents of these waters are obtained from the heated interior by the process of sublimation and subsequent absorption, while the gases are also derived from the same source in a free state. About the year 1827 the late Dr. Steele, of this village, formed a stock company to bore for salt, maintaining that the chloride of sodium contained in these springs was derived from underlying beds or reservoirs, and that it could be obtained by boring, and made a source of profit to those that would engage in the enterprise. Accordingly, operations were commenced several hundred feet west of the fault, and an artesian well, three inches in diameter and one hundred and eighteen feet in depth, was sunk in the underlying rock; but, inasmuch as none but fresh water was obtained, the scheme was abandoned; other wells bearing about the same relative position to the fault as this one have been secured at various times, but always with the same result. From the fact that the temperature of these wells and that of the mineral springs just east of them is said to be identical, and that they are, like the latter, never affected by surface-drainage, it is claimed that both have a common origin, and those that advocate the theory of sublimation claim that, if the waters are fresh at the site of these fresh-water wells, it is impossible for them to become mineral in their