Ball — On the Volcanoes and Rot Springs of India. 167 



practised even by the Hindus of southern India. He says : — " Among 

 the trees there are some which Hindu superstition has distinguished 

 with particular honours, on account of the good or evil they are 

 capable of producing. Of the mischievous kind there is a prickly 

 shrub, the points of which are poisonous, to avert the effect of which 

 they offer a sacrifice of a particular nature. It consists in sticking 

 rags on its branches, with which it is sometimes wholly covered. 

 Those who have travelled in the southern provinces must have 

 observed many examples of this." It is impossible from so meagre 

 a description to identify the tree referred to, but I think I have seen 

 rags on the hahd {Acacia arahicd), a thorny -shrub which is common 

 in the neighbourhood of the Grand Trunk-road in Bengal. 



"Where hot springs occur in spots sheltered by rocks or trees it not 

 imfrequently happens that the warm and moist atmosphere of the 

 immediate neighbourhood supports a vegetation unlike that occurring 

 in the surrounding areas. 



Sir Joseph Hooker thus described the effect of some hot springs 

 with a maximum temperature of 116° F., which are situated at 

 an elevation of 16,000 feet above the sea, one mile from the foot of 

 Kinchin] ow glacier in Sikkim : — "A few plants make the neighbour- 

 hood of the hot springs a little oasis, and the large Marmot is common, 

 tittering its sharp chirping squeak." A few days after leaving this 

 neighbourhood. Sir Joseph's thermometer was found to be missing, 

 and the servant responsible for the loss voluntarily started back to 

 retrace the marches to Kinchin jow in order to search for it, and 

 spent the whole of a cold October night in the hot water, without 

 fire or shelter at 16,000 feet above the sea," thus affording an 

 instance of how hot springs may furnish the means whereby life may 

 be sustained in localities where it would otherwise perish. 



Animal life is present, naturally, in the waters of many of these 

 springs. I have seen brightly coloured fish swimming about in the 

 sea near the spring on Barren Island, where the temperature was 

 almost too hot to allow of the hand being retained in it for any time. 

 And the famous Magar Pir (or as it should be Mungal Pir), seven 

 miles north of Karachi, is the prolific home of numerous crocodiles. 

 The animals, however, live principally in the swamp below the hot 

 springs which feed it. But in one of the stone reservoirs which 

 collect the water a large crocodile was seen on one occasion together 

 with a dozen young ones. He is called the peacock^ by the iu- 



' Himalyan Journals, vol. ii., 1855, p. 140. 



