The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 3, November, 1834Various
History
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 3, November, 1834
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
would add, between state and state.
Has the heat of these waters any connection with volcanic phenomena? Or
is the temperature entirely chemical, originating in the decomposition
of sulphuret of iron, as I suggested some years ago in a paper
published upon the subject? At the Hot Springs, the hot sulphur water
and the cold pure water, issue out of the calcareous rock at the base
of the Warm Spring mountain, within a few feet of each other. One of
these Virginia Springs, makes a copious deposite of calcareous tufa;
and at another, you perceive newly formed crystals of sulphate of iron.
The White Sulphur Spring takes its name from a rich white deposite, and
the Red Sulphur from one of that color. If this is not an uncommon and
a highly interesting section of country, calling aloud for
investigation, and meriting legislative interference, then have I taken
an entirely erroneous view of the subject.
The Warm Spring mountain is white sandstone. The rocks of the valley of
the Hot Springs are calcareous, argillaceous and silecious; they are
all nearly vertical. At first the two former, and afterwards the two
latter, alternate. They have all been deposited in a horizontal
position, and between their narrow strata are thin layers of clay
covering organic remains.--Those of the lime and slate are principally
zoophytes. That of the silecious is the fossil described by Doctor R.
Harlan, from a specimen obtained by me in the western part of the state
of New York. He supposed it to be a now extinct vegetable fossil of the
family fucoides, and he has called it _Fucoide Brongniard_,--in honor
of M. Brongniard. But I suppose it to be _animal_, and to belong to the
family of the Encrinites.[1]
[Footnote 1: See an essay of Richard C. Taylor, F. G. S. on the
geological position of certain beds which contain numerous fossil
marine plants of the family fucoides; near Lewistown, Mifflin county,
Pennsylvania, in vol. I. part I. of the Transactions of the Geological
Society of Pennsylvania, page 1.]
The mountain ranges of Virginia are more numerous, and the valleys
consequently narrower, than they are in Pennsylvania; but some of them
are very interesting. The great valley, as it is sometimes called, or
par excellence, _the valley_, situate between the Blue Ridge and the
North and Alleghany Mountain, is by far the most extensive. The rocks
often obtrude, rendering the soil rather scanty, but nevertheless this
is a fine district of country.
I could find no fossils in this rock. In regard to the metallic ores, I
would observe, that I discovered sufficient indications of their
existing in Virginia in quantity sufficient to justify a more accurate
examination. Iron abounds in almost every part of the western section
of the state. Traces of copper, lead, manganese and chrome, have also
been discovered near the Blue Ridge; and the gold of Orange County is
equal to any found in the Carolinas or Georgia.
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