20 SOUTHWESTERN NEVADA AND EASTERN CALIFORNIA. 
bowlders are badly decomposed and crumble readily in the hand. 
One hundred yards north of the pumping station is a low dome of 
grayish-brown travertine, probably an abandoned vent of the spring. 
Hicks Hot Springs, situated at the base of a low hill of silicifiecl 
rhyolite on the east bank of Amargosa River about 7 miles above 
Beatty, are five in number. The hottest spring, which supplies the 
bath house, is said to have a temperature of 110° F. and to furnish 
65,000 gallons per day. The springs in the vicinity which flow from 
the gravels of Oasis Valley arc cool, and it is possible that the warm 
waters are genetically connected with the silicification of the rhyolite. 
Water rises at the Staininger ranch, in the Amargosa Range, at sev- 
eral places in the canyon gravel, the total flow approximating (>00,000 
gallons a day. The water in December had a temperature of 75° F., 
while that of the air was but 49°. The surrounding hills are formed 
of Siebert lake beds and Pliocene- Pleistocene basalt flows. The 
Grapevine Springs flow from shallow depressions and valleys in the 
older alluvium and from the contact of that formation and the 
Pogonip limestone. Much of this water is tepid. Pliocene-Pleisto- 
cene basalt flows occur in this vicinity. At Ash Meadows, in the 
Amargosa Desert. 1 mile south of the area mapped, springs are asso- 
ciated with the older alluvium. The temperature of the larger 
springs is reported to be 76° F. ; that of one of the smaller springs is 
94° F. 
These hot or warm springs arc 4 characterized by a rather large and 
constant flow of water. They are without much doubt the vents of 
deeply circulating waters, and their association in many places with 
recent volcanic rocks suggests that they may in part owe their heat 
to volcanism, if, indeed, they are not magmatic waters. 
COLD SPRINGS. 
Cold springs and seeps are situated either at the contact of alluvial 
deposits and the mountain bed rock or in the gravels of mountain 
canyons. In the latter case the surface waters appear to seep through 
the valley gravel and to rise where the bed rock forms a bar across the 
channel. The spring from which Cottomvood Creek flows may be 
cited as an example. Springs of this class are common in the large 
quartz-monzonite area of the Panamint Range. In the granite of 
Gold Mountain and the Cambrian rocks of the Montezuma district a 
water zone occurs at the contact of the solid rock and the residual and 
detrital soil. In other cases surface water has seeped into the more 
pervious strata, particularly the Siebert lake beds, the older alluvium, 
and altered varieties of rhyolite, and many springs are situated where 
these beds either outcrop or are covered b/y a veneer of detrital or resid- 
ual material. Springs are located sporadically throughout the area 
surveyed, but seem to be more abundant around the bases of the 
higher mountains, especially of those which are covered with forests. 
