ining mountain from base to summit,
issue hot sulphur vapors, the apertures through which they escape being
encased in thick incrustations of sulphur, which in many instances is
perfectly pure. There are nearby a number of small sulphur springs, not
especially remarkable in appearance.

About one hundred yards from these springs is a large hot spring of
irregular shape, but averaging forty feet long by twenty-five wide, the
water of which is of a dark muddy color. Still farther on are twenty or
thirty springs of boiling mud of different degrees of consistency and
color, and of sizes varying from two to eight feet in diameter, and of
depths below the surface varying from three to eight feet. The mud in
these springs is in most cases a little thinner than mortar prepared
for plastering, and, as it is thrown up from one to two feet, I can
liken its appearance to nothing so much as Indian meal hasty pudding
when the process of boiling is nearly completed, except that the
puffing, bloated bubbles are greatly magnified, being from a few inches
to two feet in diameter. In some of the springs the mud is of dark brown
color, in others nearly pink, and in one it was almost yellow. Springs
four or five feet in diameter and not over six feet apart, have no
connection one with another either above or beneath the surface, the mud
in them being of different colors. In some instances there is a
difference of three feet in the height to which the mud in adjoining
springs attains. There may be in some instances two or more springs
which receive their supply of mud and their underground pressure from
the same general source, but these instances are rare, nor can we
determine positively that such is the case. This mud having been worked
over and over for many years is as soft as the finest pigments.

All of these springs are embraced within a circle the radius of which is
from a thousand to twelve hundred feet, and the whole of this surface
seems to be a smothered crater covered over with an incrustation of
sufficient strength and thickness to bear usually a very heavy weight,
but which in several instances yielded and even broke through under the
weight of our horses as we rode over it. We quickly dismounted, and as
we were making some examinations, the crust broke through several times
in some thin places through which vapor was issuing. Under the whole of
this incrustation the hottest fires seem to be raging, and the heat
issuing from