GKOLOGY. 287 



others ns 1)1 ue as indigo. This spurted out in thick, gluey consistency, rnn 

 slowly down the sides like lava, and cooled to a substance hard as rock. 

 Not fiir from this mud volcano they visited an opening which emitted the 

 most unbearable heat, as from an oven, and here the Indians had been 

 accustomed to bring rabbits, lizards, and other game to be cooked, nature 

 furnishing the fuel and fire gratis. 



In another direction, they discovered a tremendous boiling spring, forty 

 feet long by about twenty-five wide. This appeared to be of immense depth, 

 and was heated to the boiling point, presenting, in fact, an enormous caldron 

 of boiling water, bubbling and steaming exactly as a pot would do over a hot 

 fire. The water, when cooled, had an intolerable taste of alum. The hissing 

 and roaring of this boiler could be heard at a great distance. It is described 

 as shaking the ground, and emitting a loud subterranean rumbling. All the 

 country around for twenty miles seems to have been burnt up with a fierce 

 heat. The ground is hot for a mile around the volcano, and the peaks of 

 the hills are all heated. 



Mr. Farley had a narrow escape near one of the hot mud lakes. Not 

 being aware of the treacherous nature of the ground, he turned his horse 

 towards a green-looking place, where there appeared to be something like 

 feed. He had advanced but a few yards when the crust upon which the 

 horse trod began to break through, while the ground began to bend in and 

 tremble, as in a morass or quaking bog. His horse reared, and when the 

 rider attempted to turn him, he broke through, his feet entering into a hot 

 substance below, which stripped the hair and skin off the hind legs of the 

 animal in a moment, It was with the utmost difficulty he was spurred to 

 more solid ground, and the mud which was taken up was found to be too 

 hot to hold in the hand for an instant. The country seems to be in a state 

 of subterranean combustion. Where the hills have been broken down, or, 

 in other words, where land slides have occurred, the precipices are white as 

 drifted snow, as though immense lime-kilns had caved in. 



ON THE CHANGE OF CLIMATE IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE 



EARTH. 



The following is a resume of a series of letters recently communicated 

 to the London Athenaeum, by Sir Henry James, Director-in-chief of the Ord- 

 nance Survey of Great Britain, which, from novelty of the views expressed, 

 and the high scientific position of the author, have attracted no little interest, 

 and called forth considerable discussion : 



No fact has been more clearly established by geological evidence than 

 that in former periods of the earth's history there have been great and 

 extraordinary changes in the climates of its different regions. The fossil 

 faunas and floras of the Arctic regions prove incontestably that in that 

 portion of the earth the climate must at different periods have passed 

 through every variety, from the tropical to the arctic; in this our own 

 country we have the same conclusive evidences of similar changes; and 

 evidence can be produced from every part of the earth, all proving the 

 same great fact, that there has been everywhere a great change of climate. 



Ya;ious speculations have been advanced by geologists to account for so 

 remarkable a fact, and attempts have been made to prove that in the subsi- 

 dence of continents and the raising up of the bottoms of seas, and other 

 great changes with which we are familiar, there might have formerly existed 



