A BOILLNQ POOL. 



361 



It is composed of Umm put% white earth ; that is, de- 

 composed lavas. Considerable steam was escaping 

 from two or three holes where the natives had been 

 taking out this white earth or clay, which they mix 

 with rice-water and use in whitewashing their houses, 

 a common practice throughout the Minahassa We 

 now rode west to Tompasso, and turning to the north 

 came to a small village called Kolok. Thence the 

 natives guided us a short distance in a noitheasterly 

 direction to a brook, and following up this for some 

 distance, we came to a large bowl-shaped basin about 

 seventy-five feet in diameter and twenty feet deep. 

 Its sides were of soft clay, and so steep that we had 

 much dif&culty in getting near enough to its edge to 

 obtain such a view as I desbed, and the only way we 

 accomplished it was by selecting a place where the 

 intertwining roots of many small trees made a kind 

 of tmf. The coolies cleared away the shnibbery with 

 their cleavers, and then by taking the left hand of one 

 native while he held fast to another with his right, I 

 was enabled to lean over its soft edge and obtain a 

 complete view of the boiling water which pai'tly 

 covered its miry bottom. The stream which flows 

 down into this basin rises on higher land to the 

 north, and is cool until it comes into this baain. 

 Here it is heated and strongly impregnated with 

 sulphur, and changed to a whitish color. Tliis circu- 

 lar basin I suppose has been wholly formed by the 

 motion of the water that boils ^th the heat beneath 

 it. One object in visiting these hot springs was to 

 ascertain at what degree of temperature vegetation 

 fii*st began to appear, We thei^fore went down the 



