Scientific Intelligence. — Geology, 175 



Mr Irving has promised to pursue these experiments, and \ 

 have procured for him some of the standard instruments espe- 

 cially designed for this purpose furnished by the British Asso- 

 ciation. — In relation to an interesting class of facts noticed in 

 M. BischofTs paper on the temperature of springs in the last 

 number of your Journal, namely, that many springs have a 

 mean temperature a few degrees above that of the air at the 

 place, I beg to add my testimony from observations made in 

 the volcanic country of the Rhine. I am scarcely yet prepared 

 from the testimony of ray own observations to consider the fact 

 to be so general as the German naturalist . supposes. The fol- 

 lowing extract from my journal will shew that in the particular 

 cases in question I had arrived at the same conclusion, but that 

 I was disposed to attribute the effect to a local cause : — " M 

 August 1832. — Near the lower quarry [of Bell near Obermen* 

 nig], and in the bottom of the valley, rises a very fine mineral 

 spring, very similar in every respect to that of Tonistein [near 

 Laach]. It contains more iron, and the quantity of carbonic 

 acid [gas] evolved is perfectly enormous. Both springs have 

 their origin in nearly similar circumstances, namely, at a ju^iCr 

 tion of tufa with clayslate. Their temperature, it is remarkt 

 able, is almost the same, that of Tonistein being 5S°5, that of 

 the present one (which is near Obermennig, and is called the 

 Kesselbron, according to Hibbert) 54.°2. Its height must be 

 considerably above the other. Rising as these springs do from 

 valleys of common clayslate merely filled up .with accidental 

 eruptions [of trass or volcanic mud], may we not conclude that 

 the progress of secular refrigeration has not yet reduced the 

 temperatures of the lower strata of the difficultly conducting 

 mass of tufa to the mean temperature of the place, which these 

 extremely copious springs certainly exceed by several degrees."! 

 6. Progressive Rise of a portion of the bottom of the Medi* 

 terranean. — M. Theodore Virlet lately addressed a note to the 

 French Academy of Sciences, in which he directed the attention 

 of geologists to the probability of the speedy appearance of a 

 new island in the Grecian Archipelago, in consequence of the 

 progressive rise of a sunken solid rock (composed of trachytic 

 obsidian ?) in the gulf of the volcano of Santorin. The follow- 

 ing are the author's observations on this subject : — ^ Towards 



