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that the rushing of the waters may be heard as they flow in their subterranean channels. The springs are intermittent, a fountain of boiling water accompanied with a great evolution of vapor, first appears, and is ejected to a considerable height, sometimes as much as one hundred feet, a volume of steam succeeds, and is thrown up with great force and a loud noise, similar to the escape of steam from the boiler of an engine. This operation continues sometimes for more than an hour, though generally not longer than ten minutes, and is succeeded by a period of rest of uncertain duration, and then a repetition of the same phenomena. We give a view of the crater of the great Geyser reduced by Mr. Lyell, from a sketch by J. W. Hooker, M. D. The basin of the great Geyser is an irregular oval about fifty-six feet, by forty-six, the silicious mound of which it is formed, is about seven feet high. In the centre is a pipe seventy-eight feet in perpendicular depth, and about sixteen feet diameter at the top, but contracting to ten feet lower down. The circular basin is represented as

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empty, but it is usually filled with a beautifully transparent water in a state of ebullition; the inside of the basin is smooth and formed of a whitish silicious deposit, as are also two channels at

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each side, by which the water escapes when the basin is full. It is said that an eruption may be brought on in a few minutes by throwing stones down the pipe, these are again ejected, oftentimes with immense violence. The theory of the action of these hot springs of Iceland has not yet been satisfactorily given; the heat however, is supposed to be derived from subterranean volcanic fires. The silicious water from these springs incrusts plants, twigs, and leaves, similar to the calcareous springs. In the island of St. Michael there are hot springs very strongly impregnated with silica; wherever the water has flowed, sinter or precipitated rock, is formed intermixed with the clay, including grass, ferns, and reeds, in different stages of petrefaction; branches of the same ferns which now flourish in the island are found completely petrified, preserving the same appearance as when vegetating. There are many springs in this country which deposit silicious and calcareous matter.

Iron is found in the waters of almost all springs, and some of them are so copiously impregnated with this metal that they stain the rocks or herbage over which they flow. The iron which is thus borne out of the earth and deposited into the sea, acts as a cement to bind together the subaqueous deposits now forming.

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Many of the ancient sandstones are cemented and colored by iron, and pebbles are firmly bound together in ferruginous con

glomerate. Occasionally nails, or other pieces of iron, are found in the centre of a hard nodule of sandstone, formed by this process. The engraving, from Dr. Mantell's "Wonders of Geology," is a very interesting specimen, it is a conglomerate of glass beads, knives, and sand, cemented together by an infiltration of iron, derived from the oxidation of the blades. It contains two silver pennies of Edward I, and was dug up at a depth of ten feet in the river Dove in Derbyshire. The coins are presumed to have been a part of the treasures contained in the military chest of the Earl of Lancaster, which was lost in crossing the river in the dark; more than five centuries must therefore have elapsed since its submersion. The ore called bog-iron, is formed by the infiltration of water impregnated with iron, and various kinds of wood are colored black by the same cause. Iron, it is well known is one of the chief ingredients in many celebrated mineral waters, frequently in the shape of a carbonate. The consolidation of sand and other loose materials by the agency of mineral waters, is everywhere going on, and in much greater extent than can be easily comprehended; small and apparently simple as are the means employed, yet the effects are magnificent.

The detritus borne down by the mountain streams falls at last, quietly into the ocean, or is deposited upon the rich soil of some delta, after a certain time the mass is cemented together by other mineral ingredients dissolved in the water, and beds of compact stone, in which are entombed the remains of animate and inanimate existence, are formed slowly but surely, for the use of most distant generations. The twigs and leaves, and insects, which fall into the petrifying springs are incrusted with a coating of stone, or are slowly transmuted into mineral substance for the inspection and admiration of a future race. Thus the change continually goes on. The frost, the storm, and the stream, and in many volcanic districts the carbonic acid, continually given off, as for example, in the neighborhood of the extinct volcanoes of Auvergne in France, cause even the granite rocks to crumble and fall away; but in a thousand other places the process of reunion is going on, and different kinds of stone are being formed from the ruins of the old. Besides the springs to which we have

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referred, there are others very numerous impregnated with petroleum, and the minerals allied to it, as bitumen, naptha, asphaltum and pitch. These springs are found in all parts of the globe, but the most powerful yet known, are those on the river Irawadi, in the Birman Empire, there being five hundred and twenty wells in one locality, yielding annually 400,000 hogsheads of petroleum. On both sides of the island of Trinidad, fluid bitumen is seen to ooze up from the sea. In the island is a pitch lake about three miles in circumference. The asphaltum is sufficiently, hard to support heavy weights in cold and wet weather, but during warm weather it is nearly fluid. In some places it is covered by the soil, and large crops of tropical productions are raised upon it, so that it is difficult to ascertain the boundaries of the lake. Mr. Lyell supposes that the materials for the formation of this bituhave been borne down by the Oronoco into the sea; and, collected by eddies or other causes into particular regions, have been acted upon by submarine volcanic fires. The frequent occurrence of earthquakes, and other volcanic phenomena in the island, lends countenance to this opinion.

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In addition to those above mentioned, we may enumerate the saliferous or brine springs, which are everywhere so common over the globe. The agency of these springs, in the formation of rocks, is of less importance than that of the calcareous, or the silicious. Often they are strong solutions of pure rock salt, or muriate of soda, and furnish large quantities of that valuable article for the purposes of domestic economy. Such are the salt springs in the neighborhood of Salina, and Syracuse, in the State of New York. At Salina, the well is seventy feet deep, and about 480 gallons of brine are raised in one minute, and Dr. Beck states that 43 gallons are required to yield a bushel of salt, weighing 56 lbs. The well at Syracuse 170 feet deep, the pumps raise 62 gallons per minute, and 46 gallons are required to make a bushel of salt. The water is clear and sparkling, and of a temperature of 50° (Fahr.) at Salina, and 51° at Syracuse. These salt springs are supposed to be owing to immense beds of rock salt, although no borings yet made, have reached these beds. The valleys of the Mississippi and the Ohio abound in salt springs,

and are based almost wholly on the saliferous or salt bearing rocks. Two distinct strata of these salt rocks, known as the upper and lower salt rocks, are found on the Muskingum, about 400 feet apart. The stone itself is a white, or sometimes reddish tinted and porous sandstone, the upper, is 25 feet thick; and the lower 40, and this yields the strongest brine. At Cheshire England, are numerous brine springs, and the salt springs of Droitwitch, a small town in Worcestershire, are superior to any other in the island; they are supplied from beds of rock salt, or rather veins, lying below a bed of gypsum; for a long time the salt was made only from the brine which penetrated this bed, but about a century ago it was bored through and a large salt river was found to flow below. The depth of the river of brine below the surface, is about 200 feet, 150 of which are gypsum; the river flows over a bed of rock salt and is twenty-two inches deep. The origin of these extended deposits of salt has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained. The waters of the Dead Sea in Palestine, contain large quantities of muriatic salts, derived from entire rocks of this mineral, continually dissolving on its southern shore. The water contains forty-one parts in one-hundred of salt; a much greater proportion than that of the sea. It is impregnated also with other mineral substances, particularly bitumen, which floats upon its surface in such large quantities as would elsewhere sink. The volcanic appearance of the country, the almost perpendicular, black -rock which bounds its eastern or Arabian side, and throws its black shadow over the dark waters, and the limestone and sandy cliffs on its western side, which tower up in fanciful shapes, lends countenance to the opinion that these mineral substances are the products of former volcanic action. We have now glanced at the most prominent effects of springs in modifying and changing the face of the globe; although the effect of any individual spring appears trifling, yet the aggregate of change either by disintegrating, or consolidating, is immense. We have already alluded to the transporting power of rivers. The small stream which is supplied by springs, and which flows for hundreds of miles with a power which seems scarcely sufficient to carry along a few sands, by continual accessions swells finally into an immense

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