GEOLOGY. 7 



would pi-obaWy sippiify that the horing had roacheil a hoiiznn lower than that of the 

 naphthagonous beds of the distriet. As the iiaphthagenous beds (as assumed) are on 

 a higher horizon than the beds whence the brine sjirings originally issue, petndeum 

 mav of course be associated with them, and brought up along with theiu to the 

 surface, loithin the area occupied by the newer naphthagenous beds ; but the reverse 

 does not hold good, and there is no ground for expecting to meet with petroleum 

 everywhere, in connexion with brine springs, when such rise, or are ' tapped ' 

 outside of the area of the naphthagenous rocks. In a word, in America, petroleum 

 is produced in rocks of very different ages, mainly Pal»ozoic, whereas in Pegu, it 

 seems confined to rooks of Tertiary ago alone, though the brine sjn'ings have a deeper 

 origin, and are merely fortuitously associated with petroleum at their point of issue 

 at the surface, when such point happens to fall within the area of the naphthagenous 

 strata. 



The Tenasserim Provinces, writes Dr. Mason, " are well supplied with hot 

 springs, and some of them aro probaljly not inferior in their medicinal qualities 

 to the fashionable Spas of Europe and America." The hot springs of the Attarau 

 are situated within two miles of the old town of Attaran, and are thus described 

 by Dr. Heifer, " There are ten hot springs, or rather hot-water ponds, of which 

 I could only examine the nearest, as the access to the others was through deep 

 water of 130° Fahrenheit. Tiiis was a semicircular pond of about fifty feet in 

 circumference. In one place it was thirty-five feet deep. The quantity of carbonic 

 acid which the springs evolve seems to render the neighbourhood peculiarly adapted 

 to support vegetable life. The ground round the spring is strongly impregnated 

 with iron, and the water which runs over the ochre mud has a strong styptic taste. 

 The springs on the Attaran approach in their composition nearest to the celebrated 

 water of Tooplitz." 



Dr. Mason also records hot springs " about four miles below l\rattah at tho 

 forks of the Tenasserim, and a few miles north of the latitude of Tavoy, highly 

 charged with sulphuretted iiydrogen gas, so readily recognized by its smell, which 

 is precisely that of the washings of a gun barrel, the odour in Ijoth instances being 

 prochiced by the same gas. Dr. Ilelfer says these springs belonged to the class of 

 sulphurous mineral waters tinged slightly with chalybeate like the water of P>rigIiton. 

 Mr. Bennett at a recent visit found the thermometer to rise in the hottest spring 

 to only 119°." Dr. Mason thus describes the Pai springs : — 



" On the margin of the granite range east of Tavoy, either near the junction of 

 the slate and granite, or in the granite itself, is a series of the hottest springs in tho 

 Provinces. I have visited four or five in a line of fifty or sixty miles, and found 

 them uniformly of a saline character. Around one nearly east of Tavoy, the stones 

 are covered with an efflorescence resembling epsom or glauber salt. Jlr. Bennett 

 found the thermometer in this spring to rise to 144°. Major McLeod visited ono 

 of the series at Palouk, and writes: 'There are two spots where the springs show 

 themselves. One immediately in the right bank of the river, and anotlier two or 

 three minutes walk to the north-east inland. There must be 30 or 40 bubbling u]) 

 along a line of about 50 feet by 20. The hottest was 19G°, another 194°. No 

 disagreeable smell or taste.' 



" The hottest springs are at Pai, ten or fifteen nules north of those visited by 

 Major McLeod. The principal spring at Pai, — for there are several, — is in a littlo 

 sandy basin in the midst of granite rocks on the margin of a cold-wafer stream, 

 where it bubbles up from three or fonr vents, and on immersing the thermometer 

 into one, the mercury rises to 198°, within fourteen degrees of boiling water. Its 

 location is rather peculiar, not being in a valley like the others I have seen, but 

 on the side of a hill more than a thousand feet above the level of the sea, and 

 surrounded by large masses of coarse-grained granite rocks, which seem to have 

 been detached from the summit above." 



Another observer, Capt. .J. F. Stevenson, gives an acconnt of other springs at 

 the same place (J. A. S. B. 18G3, p. 383) :— " The Pai Iliver is about sixty-five miles 

 south from Tavoy town, near the Jlergui boundary. It rises in tho range of hills 



