282 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



River, in the County of Wentworth, Upper Canada. The country, for 

 some distance round, is thickly wooded ; but, in the immediate vicinity 

 of the spring, is a small clearing, upon a rising ground, on one side of 

 which is the spring, in an enclosure eight or ten rods square. In the 

 centre of this is a hillock, eight or ten feet high, made up of the gnarled 

 roots of a pine now partially decayed. The whole enclosure is covered 

 with crumbling rotten wood, and resembles a tan-heap ; upon digging 

 down eighteen inches, the same material was found, apparently derived 

 from the crumbling away of the enclosure. The whole soil, if it may 

 be thus designated, is saturated with acid water, and the mould at the 

 top of the hillock, as well as without the enclosure, is strongly acid. 



The principal spring is at the east side of the stump, and has a round 

 basin, about eight feet in diameter and about four to five feet deep ; the 

 bottom is soft mud, and there is no visible outlet ; and, at the centre, 

 a constant ebullition is going on from the evolution of small bubbles of 

 gas, which is found on examination to be carburetted hydrogen. The 

 water is slightly turbid and brownish-colored, apparently from the sur- 

 rounding decayed wood, which, indeed, forms the sides of the basis. 

 It is strongly acid and styptic to the taste, and at the same time decid- 

 edly sulphurous ; a bright silver coin is readily blackened by the water, 

 and the odor of sulphuretted hydrogen is perceived for some distance 

 round the place. Within a few feet of this was another smaller basin, 

 evolving gas more copiously than the other, and somewhat more sul- 

 phurous to the taste, although not more acid. In other parts of the 

 enclosure there were three or four smaller cavities partly filled with 

 water more or less acid, and evolving a small quantity of gas. The 

 temperature of the larger spring was 56 Fah., that of the smaller one 

 56 near the surface, but, on burying it in the soft mud at the bottom, 

 it rose to 60.5. The specific gravity was found to be 1005.683. Hunt's 

 Survey of Canada. 



GREAT CATARACT IN INDIA. 



THE river Shirhawti, between Bombay and Cape Comorin, falls into 

 the Gulf of Arabia. The river is about one fourth of a mile in width, 

 and, in the rainy season, some thirty feet in depth. This immense 

 body of water rushes down a rocky slope three hundred feet, at an angle 

 of 45, at the bottom of which it makes a perpendicular plunge of eight 

 hundred and fifty feet, into a black and dismal abyss, with a noise like 

 the loudest thunder. The whole descent is, therefore, eleven hundred 

 and fifty feet, or several times that of Niagara. The volume of water 

 in the latter is somewhat larger than that of the former ; but, in depth 

 of descent, it will be seen there is no comparison between them. In 

 the dry season the Shirhawti is a small stream, and the fall is divided 

 into three cascades of surpassing beauty and grandeur. They are al- 

 most dissipated and dissolved into mist before reaching the bed of the 

 river below. 



GROTTO DEL CANE. 



THE Grotto del Cane, or dog grotto, has been so much cited for its 

 stratum of carbonic acid gas covering the floor, that all geological trav- 



