Professor Hitchcock, in his report of a geological survey of Massachusetts, makes the following remarks in relation to the effect of iron upon a soil:
"No ore except iron occurs in sufficient quantity in the state, to deserve notice in an agricultural point of view. In the west part of Worcester county, the soil, for a width of several miles across the whole state, is so highly impregnated with the oxide of iron, as to receive from it a very deep tinge of what is called iron rust. This is particularly the case in the low grounds; where are frequently found beds of bog ore. I do not know very definitely the effect of this iron upon vegetation; but, judging from the general excellence of the farms in the Brookfields, Sturbridge, Hardwicke, New Braintree, Barae, Hubbardston, &c., I should presume it to be good. Certainly, it cannot be injurious; for no part of the county exceeds the towns just named, in the appearance of its farming interest—and nearly all the county, as may be seen by the map, is of one formation. It would be an interesting problem, which in that county can be solved, to determine the precise influence of a soil highly ferruginous upon vegetation."
Next in geological and statistical importance, I would place the mineral springs of Virginia; and these would form a legitimate subject of investigation to those who should be appointed to conduct a geological survey.
I am not aware of any portion of country of the same extent, possessing an equal number and variety of mineral springs, as the counties of Bath, Greenbrier and Monroe. This is a subject upon which one might easily compose a book, but I must confine myself to a few lines. The waters are thermal and cold; the former of various degrees of intensity. They hold in solution a variety of metals, earths, acids, and alkalies, combined in various proportions, and suited to relieve the sufferings of invalids from a number of diseases. Mineral springs of less interest than these, have excited the attention of the learned in almost every age and country; and Virginia owes it to her high mental standing, independently of every other consideration, to assist the cause of science, by investigating the causes of the high temperature, and making accurate analyses of these waters. It is the duty of states, as it is of individuals, to furnish their quota to the general stock of information; and this is peculiarly the duty of a republican state, whose happiness, nay, whose very political existence, depends upon an improved state of the minds of its citizens. Mr. John Mason Good, in his "Book of Nature," after describing the barren state of society in the middle ages, says, "we have thus rapidly travelled over a wide and dreary desert, that, like the sandy wastes of Africa, has seldom been found refreshed by spots of verdure, and what is the moral? That ignorance is ever associated with wretchedness and vice, and knowledge with happiness and virtue. Their connections are indissoluble; they are woven in the very texture of things, and constitute the only substantial difference between man and man," and I 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
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.
I have never seen any thing that exceeds the richness and variety of coloring of the serpentine of the Blue Ridge. This mineral is easily cut, and the fineness and closeness of the grain renders it susceptible of a high polish. At Zoblitz in Saxony, several hundred persons are employed in its manufacture. Besides the minerals belonging to the Talcose formation, and generally accompanying serpentine, are many of them valuable in the arts—for instance, steatite, (soap stone,) talc, chromate of iron, clorite slate, and native magnesia. A geological survey would, most probably, lead to the discovery of most of these minerals.