WELLS. 



213 



I 



was 61° The water has a sulphureous smell, with a very- 

 disagreeable brackish taste, and incrusts the stones with a 

 yellowish matter resembling sulphur. Gerrard noticed hot 

 wells amons the mountains at the heau of the same mer, 

 13,000 feet' above the level of the sea. A range of hot 

 springs, which threw up clouds of steam, was obser^-ed by 

 Captain Hodgson towards the head of the Ganges. Ihe 

 same enterprising traveller discovered, in the upper part of 

 the Jumna, hot springs at Oetha-Gur, Bannassa, and Jumno- 

 tree ; at the last-mentioned place an arch of snow forty feet 

 thick extends across the nascent stream, and comple % 

 conceals the ravine from which it takes its rise. L nder this 

 arch are numerous hot springs. Their vapour melts the 

 snow from below upwards, so as to form cavities and arches, 

 while the snow is perpetually falling from above. The tem- 

 perature of the water, where it issues from the rock, is 19.1 

 F., which, considering the elevation, 10,849 feet, is nearly 

 the boiling point of water. These springs issue from rocks 

 of sramte and deposite oxide of iron. Some of them are 

 spoutincr, being projected upwards in columns of consider- 

 able magnitude. They are of great sanctity ; and at a spot 

 used for bathing a considerable one rises in a pool of the 

 river, and renders it mUk-warm. This jet is both seen and 

 heard as it plays under the surface. \^ here the Soar and 

 the Elffie flow towards the Ganges, there occurs on the op- 

 posite bank of the fonner a series of hot springs, said to issue 



from primitive rocks. . ^ j- . • ,.„ .«. 



Wells.— On sinking pits or shafts, we m most districts at 

 len-th reach some reservoir, from which water rises upwards 

 and forms wells. Owing to the peculiar nature of the cli- 

 mate in many parts of India, wells are of vast importance m 

 cupplyincr the deficiency of rain- In the Balaghaut countiy, 

 or the country between the Krishna and Toombuddra m the 

 north and the Mysore on the south, when taken possession 

 of by the British,'fifty thousand wells were reckoned. Jiven 

 in the ereat Western Desert, wherever pits are sunk to a 

 sufficient depth, water is met with. These well* m the 

 Desert are often 300, and one was observed 345 leet deep ; 

 with this enormous depth some are only three feet m diame- 

 ter. The water, which is always brackish, unwholesome, 

 and so scanty that two bullocks working for a night witb 

 ease empty a well, is poured into reservoirs Imed with clay, 



