A MUD-WELL. 359 



morrow, so that I should not fail to see those that 

 were most interesting. 



Decemher Z^tli. — Early this morning, in company 

 with the missionary, the hukom tua^ and a number 

 of natives rode back nearly to Tompasso to reexam- 

 ine the mud-wells seen yesterday. The area in which 

 most of them are found is about half a mile square, 

 on the side of a gentle declivity. Some time before 

 we came to them, we could tell where they were by 

 the quantities of steam and gas rising from them, 

 and, as we came nearer, we could hear the heavy 

 bubbling of the principal one. It is of a triangular 

 form, and measures about thirty feet on a side, one 

 of the angles lying toward the top of the hill. The 

 mud is generally of a lead color, and varies in con- 

 sistency from the centre, where it is nearly as thin as 

 muddy water, to the edges, where in some places it 

 is as thick as cream, and in others like putty. It 

 boils up like pitch — that is, rises up in small masses, 

 which take a spherical form, and then burst. The 

 distance between the centres of these ebullitions va- 

 ries from six inches to two feet or more, so that the 

 whole surface is covered with as many sets of con- 

 centric rings as there are separate boiling points. 

 Near each of the centres the rings have a circular 

 form ; but, as they are pressed outward by the suc- 

 cessive bubbling up of the material within them, 

 they are pressed against each other, and become 

 more or less ii-regular, the corners always remaining 

 round until they are pressed out against those which 

 oi-iginated from another point. By that time the 

 rings have expanded from small circles into irregular 



