Dr W. Hibbert's Remarks on the Maculla Hot Spring. 31 



Lavender, &c., and also in the valleys we observed a few cul- 

 tivated cocoa-nut trees and cotton plants, the latter the Gossy- 

 pium herbacenvi, being a diminutive and but inferior article. 

 The former, I may remark, thrive particularly well around the 

 hot spring, although it is not in the slightest degree brackish, 

 and moreover is situated about three miles up the country, and 

 perfectly sheltered from the sea-air. 



I never met with any fossil remains in the neighbourhood. 

 The rocks upon landing consist of a fundamental one of a green 

 clay limestone, surmounted and continued along either side of 

 the coast in a S.E. direction, and the superincumbent the same, 

 with an amygdaloidal structure. Extending the walk farther 

 inwards, beds of littoral alluvium were passed over, formed of 

 agglutinated animal remains, as shells, corals, &c. &c., appa- 

 rently of late date, and shewing here and there the latter rock 

 beneath. Reascending, the former rock was again met with, 

 and continued so far as the hot spring ; and on tracing the 

 spring to its source, I found a subjacent compound formation 

 of ochre, ironstone, and sandstone. I have little doubt that 

 the spring passes over this formation and also across magnesian 

 limestone, and thus receives some impregnation from both of 

 them. 



The surrounding hills, which are numerous and similarly 

 formed, appeared to me to be composed of like rocks, chiefly 

 limestone, although, in the valleys, I here and there picked 

 up small pieces of granite, syenite, &c., but which I think 

 must have come from a distance in the interior, as I never 

 traced any rock of that description in the vicinity. It is 

 the water here alluded to, which, when cooled, is drunk by the 

 natives, and notwithstanding its slightly magnesian and cal- 

 careous taste, is relished, and is certainly by no means insipid. 

 I ascertained the temperature by the thermometer to be 98^°, 

 when it issues from the rock, forming a very agreeable warm bath, 

 much resorted to by the natives on this account, and amongst 

 them adopted as a last resource in obstinate chronic diseases, 

 particularly cutaneous, tedious cases of dysentery and fever, dis- 

 eases which are most prevalent in this neighbourhood ; in short, 

 they have actually gone so far as to build a reservoir for the 

 purpose, at the bottom of which the thick calcareous deposit 



