212 



Notes on Geological Specimens from 



[July 



road crosses a small river, where there are some masses of travertine 

 several yards square, which have been carried down by the stream : 

 they are entirely composed of petrified branches and leaves, with a 

 cement in some parts of considerable thickness, and more or less crys- 

 talline, or resembling kartkar. 



The stream rises near the town in copious hot springs, whose water 

 is considered to be exceedingly pure and delicious ; but when taken 

 from one of the springs, where it can be directly received, was found to 

 be acid to the taste, and, on boiling, deposited lime, which the carbonic 

 acid had held in solution. Bubbles of gas are also extricated with the 

 water, from one of the springs. The lime separates in its course, giving 

 a whitish appearance to the water of the pools, while it sparkles near 

 the springs and in the rapids, as was the case also at Lingti. The 

 temperature of the spring, in 1831 and 1833, was 87° ,and is the same 

 in May, June, and December ; but the difference to the feelings, accord- 

 ing to the temperature of the air, is so great, as to have led to the 

 belief that it is cold in the day and hot at night; the thermometer, 

 however, showed that it was the same at 3 p. m. and 5 a. m. of the 5th 

 June, when that of the air was 100° and 81°. The principal spring 

 rises at the root of a great Banian tree below the pagoda, and is stated 

 by the devotees to flow in the same profusion the whole year, which 

 they account for by saying that it flows from the Ganges at Benares. 

 This and other springs form a stream, that increases as its course is' 

 followed downwards, notwithstanding that much is directed to gardens, 

 and a fine sheet of paddy in the bed of the river thus formed. About 

 half a mile below the spring, the first formation of rock is found cross- 

 ing the stream like a dyke, but of a considerable breadth ; others more 

 remarkable are found lower down, and after a winding course of 2| 

 miles, it seems to cease. The congeries of branches, roots, and even' 

 trees, sometimes hollow, and always in concentric rings of deposit, 

 forms a beautiful sight when in masses of several tons weight. The 

 strata were seen in one place to be 12 feet thick, and to rest on the 

 common black alluvial soil ; near this, it had filled the original bed of 

 the stream, and forced it to find another channel : and in two places, a 

 fall of three or four feet, forming a pretty cascade, seemed to be occa- 

 sioned by the growth of the rock, and the wearing away of the channel 

 below. The deposit often conceals the remains of plants, with a smooth 

 coating of considerable thickness and firmness, frequently rounded in 

 irregular sections of large circles ; in others, in nodulous forms of great 

 beauty, covering over the extremities of the smaller or larger branches, 

 and occasionally preserving the wood in an hermetically-sealed cavity. 

 The roots of the Banian now and then pass into the empty tubes, as 

 if they were the mould on which they are formed j others probably 



