PEALE.1 THEEMAL SPRINGS OF CELEBES AXD JAVA. 349 



THE MUD WELLS AND SPRINGS OF TOMPASSO. 



The most celebrated locality in the Celebes is near Tompasso, where 

 there are mud wells and boiliug springs. The mud springs are a mile 

 and a half from Tompasso, and described by Bickmore* as occupying 

 an area of about half a mile square on a gentle declivity. The princi- 

 pal well is triangular, measuring 30 feet on eacb side. The mud is lead- 

 colored, thin in the center, and becoming thick towards the edges. 



The clistauce bet/ween the centers of these ebxillitious varies from six inches to two 

 feet or more, so that the Tvhole surface is covered with as many sets of concentric rings 

 as there are separate boiling points. Near each of these centers the rings have a cir- 

 cular form, but as they are j)ressetl outward by the successive bubbling up of the ma- 

 terial within them, they are pressed against each otlier aud become more or less ir- 

 regular — the corners always remaining round until they are pressed out against those 

 which originated from another point. By that time the rings have expanded from 

 small circles into irregular polygons. 



]S"ear this mud well is a boiling hot spring 3 feet in diameter and 2 

 feet in depth, in which the water had a temperature of 208O.4 F. The 

 natives use it for washing their clothing. Some of the springs, of which 

 there are at least 20 on the hillside, are true geysers. At the foot of the 

 hill there is a sulphur lake and mud pond. The description of these 

 springs given by Mr. Wallace t is as follows : 



A picturesque path leads to a beautiful circular basin about forty feet in diameter, 

 bordered by a calcareous ledge, so uniforjn and truly curved that it looked like a work 

 of art. It was filled with clear water very near the boiling point, aud emitted clouds 

 of steam with a strong sulphurous odor. At one point it overflows and forms a little 

 stream of hot water, which, at a hundred yards distance, is still too hot for the hand 

 to endure it, A little further on, two other springs in a continual state of active ebul- 

 lition, appeared to be mvich hotter; and at intervals of a few minutes a great escape 

 of gas or steam occurred, throwing up a column of water three or four feet high. 



JAVA. 



Java has been well named the "Land of Fire." Michelet, in his Mount- 

 ain, says it is dowered with lire. The island is 630 miles in length, and 

 from 35 to 126 miles in width, having an area almost two-thnxls that of 

 Great Britain. It has extending through its length two lines of vol- 

 canic mountains, with from thirty-eight to forty-live volcanoes whose 

 heights are from 3,000 feet to nearly 12,000 feet, and whose eruptions in- 

 stead of being lava are torrents of mud like some of the South Amer- 

 ican vents. They are, therefore, mud volcanoes on the grandest scale. 

 In the crater of one of the volcanoes (Taschem) is a lake, strongly im- 

 pregnated with sulj^huric acid, from which issues a stream so acid that 

 no form of life can exist in it nor in the sea near its mouth. Near another 

 (Batan, an extinct cone) is the famous Guevo Upas (Vale of Poison) so 

 tilled with an accumulation of carbonic-acid gas as to be fatal to life. 



Hot springs abound in Java, especially along the volcanic mountains, 

 and the following are descriptions of but a few : 



The Valley of Dieng. 



The valley of the Dieng measures about a mile in circumference, sur- 

 rounded by a semiciicle of irregular hills in the Brambanan Mountains. 



*Travels in the East Indian Archipelago, p. 359. 

 t In the Malay Archipelago, p. 258. 



