E. H. L. Schicars — Hot Springs. 259 



fissures through which, on the one hand, the underground water 

 of a continent passed downwards ; and on the other, a system 

 beneath the sea connecting with the first, in which at one time 

 fresh water, at another salt water, infiltrated, according to the mutual 

 pressure exerted by each. Then imagine a differential movement 

 in the crust : the land fissures would be disconnected, and the sea- 

 water would press downwards along the established lines of flow 

 until stopped by the rock in the zone of the movement which had 

 become melted by pressure and friction. This crude explanation 

 would account for the water in lavas, and for their occasional high 

 content in sodium-chloride, that is to say, each volcanic line in 

 which the rock was melted up by earth-movements, if near the 

 sea, would be enclosed on either side by a system of fissures which 

 had long been the conduits for considerable bodies of water, on the 

 one side sending down fresh, on the other salt water. One would 

 think that if this was actually the case, the water once reaching the 

 molten rock would be instantly returned along the way it came 

 in the form of superheated steam. But underground fissures are 

 intricate ; they wind upwai'ds and downwards, and the water usually 

 percolates by a system of syphons which will work one way but 

 not the other. Capillarity also comes into play, and, as Daubree has 

 shown,^ this works only one way, namely, towards the hotter portion 

 of the rock that contains the capillary interstices. Thus we have 

 the water forced into the zone of molten material, and what little 

 can escape does so in the form of hot springs. 



The final result of this line of reasoning is that the water that 

 was pressed into the molten surface of the globe by an atmosphere 

 consisting of the whole of the present hydrosphere is still there, 

 and cannot escape, because, apart from the still doubtful occlusion 

 of the water, this primordial magma is so covered with later deposits 

 that it never has an opportunity of coming to the surface and cooling 

 itself sufficiently to allow the water- vapour to escape. We must look 

 to the veins of quartz, filled with the heavy metals like gold, for the 

 evidences of the very slight extravasation of this primordial water 

 in bygone ages, and we must suppose that deep beneath the surface, 

 far below the zone from which the volcanoes derive their material, 

 such extravasation is now going on, but that it can never be felt at 

 the present surface of the globe. The gold-bearing hot springs of 

 Nevada may be regarded either as an exceptional case of the 

 primordial water having come into connection with the surface 

 system of water supply, or, what is more probable, that the hot 

 springs traverse a mineralized area in which the precious metal 

 had already been deposited, and from which the water has leached 

 out its unaccustomed burden. The reason for considering the latter 

 the more probable is that it seems to me that if the water is the 

 primordial vapour condensed, the heat at which it exists in the 

 interior is a function of the depth, and by coming to the surface it 

 would pass through layers each of which would be heated according 

 (to its depth ; the water would therefore arrive above ground at the 



^ " Geologie Esperimentale," 1879, p. 258. 



