FIVE DAYS IN NANING. 
283 
be seen that the flat is formed by the meeting of four low 
hills ; all of which appear to have widely extended suifaces. 
These hills are more or less iron-masked, with the excepti¬ 
on probably of B. Sapom on which no rocks were visible 
on the line where I examined it, but which is a spur of a 
wide undulating tract extending to Sabang and mostly, it 
not entirely, granitic, as will afterwards appear. 1 he hot 
swamp lies, as I have said, between the road and the base 
of the hill which forms the western side of the flat. 1 
could not approach it from the hill as the ground is there 
uncultivated and swampy, but the thicket which lises out 
of it extends nearly back to the hill, and is said by the 
Malays to have a bottom of hot mud and water throughout. 
The water must rise from more than one place, and the 
quantity discharged is considerable, as, where it flows out 
beneath a bridge across the road, it formed a running stream 
three feet broad and three inches deep. Every day there is 
probably discharged about ten thousand cubic feet, and as 
it has a temperature of 110° the quantity of heat that it con¬ 
ducts from the interior to the atmosphere must m the course 
of ages be great.+ 
In the evening I walked to Sabang. The road lies over a 
flattish undulating tract apparently of decomposed granite, 
but no rock is visible. It is covered by patches of low jungle 
and brushwood, and open grassy spots which are well cropped 
by goats and buffaloes. On arriving at the first enclosed 
cottages of Sabang, the ground rose on the lett and some 
in the last edition of lvis work on volcanoes (1847), coticlu- 
■ of known thermal springs that “ thermal waters in general 
2^whirpl^raction has converted the rocks of the district into granite. 
Q <1 
