Account of Hot Springs in the Himala/ija. o5 



Aurelius Helogabalus ordered this stone to be erected in the 

 calends of March.' The vacant space before JuUa Domna 

 the mother, is where the name of ' Geta, the other brother, 

 was erased ; Caracalla having murdered him, ordered his name 

 to be blotted out of every inscription where it was inserted. 

 Mr Salt tells us that there is one instance of this at Rome, 

 and he has met another on an inscription discovered at the 

 late excavation of the Sphinx. I should like to have sent 

 the original Latin to you, but as it was not to be got, I must 

 be content with what I have. You will observe the inscrip- 

 tion says, that the Romans discovered the nine quarries, not 

 that they made them. One must therefore infer that they 

 were first worked by the Egyptians; and as they were so nu- 

 merous, and of such magnitude, they must have been of great 

 consequence, and doubtless one of the most remote antiquity. 

 I confess I was much perplexed to think how the Egyptians 

 could have cut, hollowed out, and polished such immense 

 blocks of the hardest stone, without the use of iron, a metal 

 which they are said to be wholly ignorant of ; the niches there- 

 fore, which I mentioned above, if not with iron, must have 

 been cut with brass. 



4. Account of Hot Springs, and Volcanic Appearances in the 

 Himalaya Mountains. isd/onij 



In the eighth Number of this Journal, p. 209, we pub- 

 lished a very interesting account of the appearance of a vol- 

 cano in the Himalaya mountains, transmitted to us by a cor- 

 respondent in India. In confirmation of this curious fact, he 

 has sent us the following extract of a report on Kemaons, 

 by the Commissioner Mr Traill. 



" If volcanic appearances are ever discovered, it will no 

 doubt be in the Himalaya range. A few hot springs are to 

 be met with in the passes through it. The heat of them 

 vary. One at Buddreenaut, where it issues from the ground, 

 shows a heat of 1 38° of Fahrenheit. 



The inhabitants residing at the base of the range in ques- 

 tion state that smoke is occasionally seen to rise from the in- 

 terior. The frequent occurrence of earthquakes renders it 

 possible that some volcano is situated there ; but the inacces- 



