62 Natural History of Vokmios and Earthquakes. 



thrown up, extends to the newest formations. Therefore we are 

 justified, under these circumstances, in expecting to find many 

 thermal springs in this district, and especially at those points 

 where two different systems of elevation have intersected each 

 other at different periods, and admitted the meteoric water to 

 penetrate to the interior. The thermal springs in the Pennine 

 Alps are found partly in the direction of the principal chain of 

 the Alps, partly, and more abundantly, in- the points of intersec- 

 tion of this system with that of the Western Alps, and in this 

 last system. Thus at Naters in the Upper Valais, (86^ Fahr. ;) 

 at Leuk (1 15^-124° ;) in the valley o( Bagnes at Lavey, south- 

 east of Bex (113 



Moutiers and 



_„. _, ... ^hamouni; St. Gervaise on Mont Blanc (94^- 



98° ;) Coiirmaymr and >S'^. Didier, on the southern declivity of 

 Mont Blanc (93°;) Aix les Bains in Savoy (U^^-IW^,) with 

 numerous hot springs in the neighborliood ; MouticTS in the Ta- 

 rentaise, Brida in Tareniaise, and some at Grenohle. 



It certainly deserves particular notice, that at one point of in- 

 tersection {Mont Blanc) so many, and at the other [Leuk) the 

 warmest springs are met with. Moreover, many thousand springs 

 present themselves, some in the glacier streams, some under the 

 glaciers themselves, and some may be stopped up. Thus, most 

 of the above mentioned thermal springs have been discovered 

 only since Saussure's journeys ; a h\v very lately, such as that 

 at Lavey in the bed of Rhone in 183 1 ; and others again have 



become filled up. 



Among those which occur in the continuation of the principal 



Alpine chain, I will mention only the tvvo most celebrated, Puff- 

 ers and Gastein. They are distinguished by their very small 

 proportion of solid and volatile ingredients. In fact they are 

 scarcely any thing more than warm glacier-water.* It seems to 

 me that these thermal springs, and probably many others also in 

 the Alps, reser.-ible exactly those in Isrhia, which Daubeny sup- 

 poses to be purely the result of the infiltration of water to spots 

 in the interior of the earth retaining a high temperature, with 

 this difference only, that these spots lie somewhat deeper in the 



• Of Ihc thermal water of Gastein, 10,000 parts contain only 3.5 solid matter ; 

 the same qua.iiity of water from the LuUsrhlne, which flows immediately out under 

 the glacier, contains only one, and that from the Aar at Bern only , 2.2. 



