62 Natural History of Volcanos and Earthquakes. 



thrown up, extends to the newest formations. Therefore we are 

 justified, under these circumstances, in expecting to find many 

 thermal springs in this district, and especially at those points 

 where two different systems of elevation have intersected each 

 other at different periods, and admitted the meteoric water to 

 penetrate to the interior. The thermal springs in the Permine 

 Alps are found partly in the direction of the principal chain of 

 the Alps, partly, and more abundantly, in the points of intersec- 

 tion of this system -with that of the Western Alps, and in this 

 last system. Thus at Naters in the Upper Yalais, (86° Fahr. ;) 

 at Leuk (115°-124° ;) in the valley o( B agues at Lavey, south- 

 east of iier (113° ;) Saute de Pucelle, between Moutiers and 

 St. Maurice, in Chamouni ; St. Gervaise on Mont Blanc (94°- 

 98° ;) Courma.yeur and ^S*^. Didier, on the southern declin^ity of 

 Moni Blanc (93°;) Aix les Bains in Savoy (112°-117°,) with 

 numerous hot springs in the neighborhood ; Moutiers in the Ta- 

 rentaise, Brida in Tarentaise, and some at Grenoble. 



It certainly deserves particular notice, that at one point of in- 

 tersection {Mont Blanc) so many, and at the other {Leuk) the 

 warmest springs are met with. Moreover, many thousand springs 

 present themselves, some in the glacier streams, some under the 

 glaciers themselves, and some may be stopped up. Thus, most 

 of the above mentioned thermal springs have been discovered 

 only since Saussure's journeys ; a few very lately, such as that 

 at Lavey in the bed of Rhone in 1831; and others again have 

 become filled up. 



Among those which occur in the continuation of the principal 

 Alpine chain, I will mention only the two most celebrated, Pftff- 

 ers and Gastein. They are distinguished by their very small 

 proportion of solid and volatile ingredients. In fact they are 

 scarcely any thing more than warm glacier-water.* It seems to 

 me that these thermal springs, and probably many others also in 

 the Alps, resen-jble exactly those in Ischia, which Daubeny sup- 

 poses to be purely the result of the infiltration of water to spots 

 in the interior of the earth retaining a high temperature, with 

 this difference only, that these spots he somewhat deeper in the 



* Of the thermal water of Gastein, 10,000 parts contain only 3.5 solid matter; 

 the same quantity of water from the Lilttschine, which flows immediately out under 

 the glacier, contains only one, and that from the Jlar at Bern only, 2.2. 



