HOT WATER SUPPLY OF THE HOT SPRINGS 439 



In i860, David Dale Owen/ state geologist of Arkansas, pub- 

 lished an account of the springs with analyses and observations on 

 temperatures. He rejects all chemical theories of origin of the 

 heat. 



On the contrary, I attribute the cause of it to the internal heat of the earth , 

 I do not mean to say that the waters come in actual contact with fire, but 

 rather that the waters are completely permeated with highly heated vapors 

 and gases which emanate from sources deeper seated than the water itself. 



Owen believed that the novaculite was a sand rock which had 

 been changed by the "permeation" of heated alkaline waters and 

 considered the hot springs merely the dying phase of this extensive 

 movement of water. He gives, however, no mechanism or conduit 

 for these waters. 



In 1892 J. C. Branner,^ state geologist, discusses the origin of 

 the heat and attributes the heat of the water to "coming in con- 

 tact with the masses of hot rocks, the cool edges of which may or 

 may not be exposed at the surface." 



In 1902 Walter Harvey Weed published a geological sketch 

 of the hot springs.^ Weed noted that the principal springs are 

 arranged along a line running NNE., parallel to the axis of the 

 fold forming Hot Springs Mountain. He thought this a fault 

 fissure. Fissuring in connection with faulting seems confirmed 

 (p. 438). Weed considered that the purity of the waters, par- 

 ticularly their low content of silica, and the included gas which 

 appears to be dissolved air, all point to a meteoric origin of the 

 water, i.e., that the water is derived from rain and differs from 

 ordinary spring water only in being heated. He believed this 

 heat to be derived from still uncooled igneous rock intruded into 

 the sediments below the springs. The upper parts of similar bodies 



^ David Dale Owen, Second Report of a Geological Reconnaissance of the Middle 

 and Southern Counties of Arkansas, etc., pp. 18-27, Philadelphia, i860. 



* J. C. Branner, "Mineral Waters of Arkansas," Arkansas Geol. Survey, Ann. Rept., 

 i8gi. Vol. I (1892), pp. 8-23. 



3 J. K. Haywood, Report of Analysis of the Waters of the Hot Springs, etc.; and 

 Walter Harvey Weed, Geological Sketch of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Senate Doc. 282, 

 S7th Congress, ist Sess. 1902. Also with modifications U.S. Geol. Survey, Water- 

 Supply Paper 14$ (1905), pp. 189-206, and separate by Interior Department, 1912. 



