164 Prof. BischofFo?! Hut and Thermal Springs. 



springs flow through the winter, under a covering of ice and 

 snow.* The supposed collection of water in the interior of the 

 Balm Horn (which supposition is justified by the sinking of 

 such enormous bodies of water as those of the Dauben See on 

 the Genimi, as well as by other phenomena, from which it is 

 evident that the limestone has there suffered very considerable 

 fissures in the interior) may be fed during the summer by the 

 partial melting of the snow, for even on the summit of Mont 

 Blanc it sometimes rains during the warm summer months, and 

 the snow is there sometimes seen to begin to melt. 



These considerations prove the possibility of the creation of 

 warm springs in the Alps, whe?n water in the interior of the 

 mountains comes down from a great height, and, after passing 

 through the warmer strata of the earth, makes its appearance in 

 the valleys below. Such warm springs may even rise in very 

 considerable elevations, provided there be still higher mountains 

 in the environs. I will only bring forward one example more : 

 if water should penetrate from the above mentioned mines of 

 Guanaxuato in Mexico, where the temperature is already as high 

 as 98°.15 into the interior of the mountains, as low as the level 

 of the sea, its temperature would then have risen to 189°.50. 

 Thus, then, in the high mountains of America, boiling hot springs 

 may be produced, merely by the infiltration of meteoric waters 

 into the interior of the earth, at an elevation of 9000 to 10,000 

 feet, and their reappearance at the level of the sea. And as this 

 height is more than 4000 feet below the limits of perennial snow, 

 the infiltration of the meteoric waters may be supposed to con- 

 tinue uninterruptedly in winter as well as in summer. The ex- 

 istence of such thermal springs, therefore, does not require that 

 the waters should be brought to the surface by hydrostatic pres- 

 sure. 



• Captain James, 1631. See Von Buch in Poggend. Annal. xii. 405. 



