58 Dr Daubeny on Thermal Springs, 



sion of nature, such as that caused by an earthquake, or the 

 sudden elevation of a large tract of the country. 



Now, that a great change has taken place in the physical 

 tructure of the country near Pfeffers, would seem from the fact, 

 for which I may quote the authority of Ebel, that the Rhine, 

 instead of flowing, as it now does, almost due north to the Lake 

 of Constance, was at one time deflected to the east in the direc- 

 tion of the Lake of Wallenstadt, owing to the barrier that ori- 

 ginally existed at the pass of St Lucia, where the mountains pre- 

 sent the appearance of having been riven asunder by some sub- 

 sequent violence. For the evidence in support of this. I must 

 refer to M. EbeFs work. 



The other hot springs in Switzerland appear under circum- 

 stances for the most part similar. Those of Weissenburg, in 

 the Canton of Berne, rise out of a gorge of the same kind as that 

 of Pfeffers ; those of Loueche appear at the foot of the mural 

 precipice of the Gemmi, in the midst of indications of great 

 confusion ; whilst the spring of Baden, in the Canton of Ar- 

 govie, from which that of Scinznach is not far removed, lie near 

 the point where, in consequence of the two mountains of Staffe- 

 legg and Lagern having been severed asunder by some great 

 convulsion, the waters of the Rhine and of the other rivers, 

 which appear to have constituted a single lake, extending from 

 Coire in the Grisons to this mountain ridge, including the 

 Lakes of Zurich and Wallenstadt, with the intermediate country, 

 in'one continuous sheet of water, flowed off by the channel now 

 taken by one of the rivers, the Limmat, alone. Thus the Rhine 

 may be supposed to owe its original direction to the event which 

 produced one hot spring, and its present course to that which 

 occasioned another. 



If we turn from the hot springs of the Continent to those of 

 our own country, we shall find them, in the majority of instances, 

 connected with proofs of similar convulsions. 



Such appears to be the case with regard to that of St Vin- 

 cent's rocks near Clifton. We have the authority of Messrs 

 Buckland and Conybeare for considering the defile from which 

 this hot spring issues, and which turns the river Avon aside 

 from the valley leading through Long Ashton and Nailsea to 

 the Bristol Channel, conducting it through the limestone chain 



