FLCETZ TRAP FORMATIONS, 203 



agreeable smell is perceptible at some (listance. They are 

 not like most of the saline springs frequented by herbivorous 

 animals. They are six or seven in number, antl all rise 

 within a few yards of each otiier. The mineral substances 

 which they hold in solution are probably nearly the same in 

 eacli ; but the water of one of them is highly charged with 

 fixed air, and for this reason is more agreeable to the taste. 

 Their temperature appears to be that of the earth at a small 

 distance below the surface. In the middle of July, the me- 

 dium temperature of these springs, as well as of tiic great 

 one at the foot of the peak aI)ovementioned. appeared by se- 

 veral trials, to be al)out sixfv-two degrees of Fahr. In the 

 air the thermometer ranged from fifty to one hundred and 

 four degrees. These springs have been called Bell's Springs, 

 in compliment to captain John R. Bell, who visited them on 

 the 18th of July, 18^0. The sandrock from which they is- 

 sue is rapidly succeeded by one still more fine and hard, and 

 of a browner colour, alternating with each other, and rest- 

 ing against the perpendicular gneiss rock which there forms 

 the commencement of the primitive, and beyond which it 

 seems almost itnpossible to penetrate. It appears, however. 

 frf)m the Journal of that enterprisins; travellei, the late Ge- 

 neral Pike, that he entered the mountains at this place. The 

 Arkansaw rushes with great violence of current from a nar- 

 vow gap in this gneiss rock, and is then for a considerable 

 distance confined to a narrow and deep valley bounded on 

 both sides by precipitous walls of sandstone rising from one 

 hundred to one hundred and fifty fept to the level of the 

 great plain. These rocky banks are of the argillaceous sand- 

 stone before mentioned, and appear to extend si\ty or se- 

 venty miles from the mountain. Where the exploring; par- 

 ty forded the Arkansaw, about one hundred miles from the 

 mountain, the country is not rocky, l)ut rises very gradually 

 from the river, till at the distance of six qr eiiiht miles it is 

 broken by a few inconsiderable gravelly hills. A little dis- 

 tance from the considerable streams, it varies but little from 



