A BOILING POOL. ^Qi 



It is composed of tcma puti, white eartli ; tliat is, de- 

 composed lavas. Considerable steam was escapino- 

 from two or three holes where the natives had been 

 taking out this white earth or clay, which they mix 

 with rice-water and use in whitewashino; their houses, 

 a common practice throughout the Minahassa. We 

 now rode west to Tompasso, and turning to the north 

 came to a small villao;e called Nolok. Thence the 

 natives guided us a short distance in a northeasterly 

 direction to a brook, and following up this for some 

 distance, we came to a large bowl-shaped basin about 

 seventy-five feet in diameter and twenty feet deep. 

 Its sides were of soft clay, and so steep that we had 

 much difficulty in getting near enough to its edge to 

 obtain such a view as I desired, and the only way we 

 accomplished it was by selecting a place where the 

 intertwining roots of many small trees made a kind 

 of turf The coolies cleared away the shrubbery with 

 their cleavers, and then by taking the left hand of one 

 native while he held fast to another with his right, I 

 was enabled to lean over its soft edo;e and obtain a 

 complete view of the boiling water which partly 

 covered its miry bottom. The stream which flows 

 down into this basin rises on hio-her land to the 

 north, and is cool until it comes into this basin. 

 Here it is heated and strongly impregnated with 

 sulphur, and changed to a whitish color. This cu'cu- 

 lar basin I suppose has been wholly formed by the 

 motion of the water that boils with the heat beneath 

 it. One object in visiting these hot springs was to 

 ascertain at what degree of temperature vegetation 

 first began to appear. We therefore went down the 



