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Se eee 
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WATERS from ICELAND. 121 
of their being fwelled and-extended by the water penetrating 
into them ; and by a longer action of the water, there is no 
doubt that they, or fome part of them, are completely dif- 
folved. 
Tuose who may have objections againft admitting, that a 
boiling heat, and great length of time, are fufficient aids to- 
enable water to diflolve a compound of the filiceous earth with 
fuch a fmall proportion of alkali, may imagine this earth to 
have been at firft combined with a larger proportion of alkali 
than that we now find combined with it, and that after it was 
diffolved in the water, a part of this alkali was neutralized by 
acid vapours, or acid fubftances, which the water found in its 
way towards the furface. 
On the whole, however, the fuppofition which appears to me 
the moft probable is, that common falt and Glauber’s falt, con- 
veyed by fea-water, or contained in foffils formed from fea- 
.plants, have been applied, under the influence of a violent heat, 
to fome of the numerous earthy and ftony ftrata which contain 
mixtures of filiceous and argillaceous earth; that thofe falts 
have been in part decompounded, by the attraction of thefe 
earths for the alkali of the neutral falt, part of the acid has 
been diffipated, or changed into fulphur and fulphureous gas, 
by the action on it at the fame time of inflammable matter, 
which we know to be prefent in many of the ftrata; and that 
the compound of alkali and earthy matter has afterwards been 
long expofed, and continues expofed, to the action of the hot 
water. By fuch a fuppofition, we can imagine how the feveral 
ingredients of thefe hot fprings became diffolved in them; and 
this fuppofition appears the more probable, when we attend to 
the accurate obfervations of Mr Srantey, on the nature of the 
country, and ftate of the foil, in which thefe two hot fprings are 
found. The rocks and mountains, which are at a fmall di- 
ftance, or in the immediate vicinity of each of them, are formed 
chiefly of different kinds of Java. The lower country and foil 
Vor. III, QO» at 
