252 E. E. L. Schivarz — Rot Springs. 



period. The question thus opened is a wide one, and whatever 

 its solution demands far-reaching hypotheses. Did the Miocene 

 sea extend over the whole peninsula, and are these but faulted 

 relics of this Mediterranean advance, or was the present con- 

 figuration of this district so far outlined that two arms of the sea 

 already bounded the Sinai peninsula, though connected with the 

 Mediterranean instead of the Eed Sea, as at the present day? In 

 the Central Sinai ranges no traces of such strata have been met 

 with in the fault-valleys, and the final answer will probably only 

 be obtained when the plateau of El Tih has been more closely 

 examined. The other alternative appears to be that fault or rift 

 action had begun at a far earlier date than is usually assumed. 



In any case it can now be definitely stated that Miocene strata 

 of well-marked character are also present in the Gulf of Akaba 

 area, and Barron permits me to add that he has found Pecten, 

 Ostrea, and Heterostegina beds of the same age to be present in 

 the whole sedimentary area of the west of Sinai. We both agree 

 in regarding the raised reef at Ras Mohammed as belonging to the 

 same stage, a view which is supported to a certain extent by 

 Blanckenhorn's identification of the fossils sent from this locality, 

 •though the latter are always poorly preserved. 



III. — Hot Springs. 

 By Ernest H. L. Schwarz, A.R.C.S., F.G.S., 



Of the Geological Survey, Cape of Good Hope. 



fPHROUGH the great kindness of Professor Suess I have received 

 X the full text of his paper on Hot Springs, read before the 

 Congress of Naturforscher und Aerzte ^ held last year in Karlsbad, 

 in which he adduces very strong arguments in favour of their 

 being due to vapours given oif from the molten interior of the 

 earth as it gradually cools. I have for a long time been observing 

 the hot springs that occur in the Cape Colony, and had come to the 

 conclusion that they were surface-waters that had sunk deep into 

 the earth's crust, and were returned heated in consequence of their 

 haying been in the neighbourhood of potential fusion of the rocks. 

 This latter view I alluded to in a recent paper,^ and I do not like 

 to have to give up a long-cherished idea before submitting to the 

 public a statement of the reasons that led me to my view of 

 the subject. 



The first point is the position in which we find the hot springs 

 of the Colony. Those at Aliwal North occur apparently in the 

 Beaufort Beds, and those at Malmesbury in the old clay-slates and 

 granite, but all the others come out at or near the junction of the 

 Table Mountain Sandstone with the Bokkeveld Beds. The following 

 is a list of those that I have visited: — Caledon ; Montagu; Brand 

 Vlei, on the Worcester-Villiersdorp road ; Warm Water, on the road 



1 "Prometheus," vol. xiv, Nos. 690, 691, 692, begiumng p. 209, Berlin, 1903; 

 abstract in Geographical Journal, vol. xx, p. 517. 



2 " An imrecognised A2:ent in the Deformation of Eocks": Trans. S. African 

 Phil. Soc, p. 391, Cape Town, 1903. 



