THE TEMPERATURE OF THE POOLS. 363 



witli live coals, and at tlie end of the third reading 

 I dropped the bamboo and ran back with all my 

 might to escape these pests and end my miseiy. 

 While I held the thennometer in the bubbling (not 

 boiling) water, I ordered the coolie to raise the sticks 

 that were floating in it, but could not discern the 

 slightest appearance of any vegetable growth, though 

 it was very noticeable a little farther down the stream 

 where the temperature of the water was not more than 

 one degree lower, but where the quantity of sulphur 

 in the water must have been much less, judging by the 

 proportionate strength of the fames that rise in the 

 two places. All the other readings given here were 

 made while the mercury remained in the water, and 

 as the thermometer had been carefully marked the 

 observations are liable to but little error. If some 

 other observer should go to the same places and find 

 a greater or less quantity of water, no doubt the tem- 

 perature also would l)e found to have slightly changed. 

 The missionary in our party, who had visited this 

 place several times, assured me that frequently, when 

 the cold stream that flows into this basin is much 

 swollen by heavy rains, the water is thrown up at 

 short intervals as high as a common palm-tree, about 

 fifty feet. The natives also told me they had all often 

 seen it in such violent action. The basin is therefore 

 nothing but the upper, expanding part of a deep 

 geyser-like tube. 



We now retui-ned toward Langowan, and visited 

 a large basin of hot water to the left of the road, and 

 about a mile from that villasje. Its basin is bowl- 

 shaped, nearly circular in form, forty-eight feet in 



