288 SOUTH AFRICAN SPRINGS. 



Springs of mineral waters, of the common temperature, 

 have been noticed in various places ; one near Graaf 

 Reynet, and another not far from Uitenhage, and one also 

 in the Tarka ; but their chemical composition has not been 

 accurately ascertained. 



Remarks on the Importance of a Knowledge of the Natural 

 History and Chemical Composition of Springs. —The springs 

 of the African continent have hitherto been almost entirely 

 neglected by travellers and naturalists, either through in- 

 difference or ignorance. Now, however, that scientific men 

 have settled in different parts of that quarter of the globe, 

 particularly in Southern Africa, accurate details may be ex- 

 pected in regard to their various kinds, whether temporary, 

 perennial, intermittent, periodical, spouting, sublacustrine, 

 subfluvian, or submarine ; their magnitude and colour ; the 

 temperature of common springs, at different elevations 

 above the level of the sea, and during different seasons of 

 the year ; and the range of temperature of warm and hot 

 springs. But in order to complete the history of the springs 

 of the country, we must, besides, describe not only the 

 rock or rocks from which they flow, but also ascertain the 

 various relations of these rocks to those of the neighbouring 

 mineral formations. Chemical investigations will afford 

 the necessary details as to the different mineral matters that 

 enter into their composition. The remarkable animal sub- 

 stance met with in some European springs, and probably 

 of more frequent occurrence than is believed, and which 

 may be derived from the strata containing animal fossil re- 

 mains, through which the spring waters percolate, ought 

 to be looked for, because its presence will afford to the 

 chemist an opportunity o f examining a substance ot a very 

 curious nature ; to the geologist, data for interesting spe- 

 culation ; and to the physician, the means of judging of the 

 mode of action of those waters containing it, in scrofula 

 and other diseases in which its use is said to be so bene- 

 ficial. It may happen here, as in other countries, that the 

 springs deposite around their sources, and at greater or 

 less distances from them, much of the dissolved and sus- 

 pended foreign matter they contained, and thus give rise to 

 mineral formations, the external aspect and mode of ar- 

 rangement of which will illustrate geological phenomena 

 observed among the older rock- formations of which the crust 



