'Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from September 1850 to June 1852. Edited by the Secretary. Volume X.' [‎156] (289/458)

156
VOLCANOES OF INDIA.
they find on their arrival the mud at the top in a state of commotion
evidence to them sufficient that the invocation has been listened b
and the deity is present.”* ’
Turning hack on thelndus, we find hotsprings in the Lukkee Pass The
range of hills in this neighbourhood is composed of little ridges not ex
ceeding 400 feet above the plain of the Indus, their apices with nearly
horizontal strata, their sides abrupt and precipitous, and non-nurn-
mulitic. The valleys, or intervening spaces between the hills, have
been much disturbed. A variegated clay, abounding with gypsum
but containing no fossils, is of common occurrence. A brown, rust-
coloured rock is abundantly distributed on the surface in the shape of
rounded boulders, the most promising specimens of which are manu
factured by the natives at Kotree into iron. Between this and the
Indus are numerous low hillocks of alumniferous clay, used for the
manufacture of alum by the Scindees. The hot springs issue from the
bottom, from what appears an external crater, of the same general
character as those already described near Peer Muggen. There
are here several hot springs near each other—they are all salt
and sulphureous; the whole valley smells strongly of sulphuretted
hydrogen gas, which rises in bubbles from the well, and a scum is
constantly gathering on the water, which the natives remove and use
as sulphur. Near one of the hot springs is an aperture in the rock
three inches in diameter, from which, until of late years, a jet of flame
used to issue ; it was called the peri’s fire by the natives, and is be
lieved to have become extinguished on some infidel having bathed in the
neighbouring well.!
There is a very copious hot and sulphurous spring at Gurrum-ah,
(i. e. hot well, spelt gurruma, Col. Campbell’s map). In the Bolan
Pass, about 200 miles to the northward. I am not aware of any be
tween this and Lukhee.
The area of the volcanic field of Beila has never been precisely deter
mined : it extends some fifty or sixty miles inland, and at least three
times as much along shore.
* Ahridged fr<i*n Capt. V. Hart’s Pilgrimage to HighLij, Pom. Geo. Trans. 1839,
Reports 18'0, p. cyiii. A much more minute and copious account < f the mud critters or
Hihglaj than that given by Capt. Hart is published in the 1 Ob number of the Transactions
of the Bom. Br. of the Roy. As. S*. for 185J wrhte > by Capt. Robertson of H* M’s 8tiJ»
at confirms the perfect accuracy of Capt. Hart's account, as far as it goes.
f Abridged and slightly altered from Capt. Viccary’s account of the Geology of Scina#
London Gaol. Trang. 1846, yol. iii. p, 34t t
^ence sufficient
joito the central
volcano ibi
ilorc, after having
lit,, at the entra
wt, till it turn
Ip low sandy s]
feet above high t
kns or salt swa
iftlie aspect of
wl) five miles in
M numerous lit
it Tliere is at
^ store beside
fitly an old se