side.  Toiling on our course down this creek to the river we came suddenly upon a basin of boiling sulphur springs, exhibiting signs of activity and points of difference so wonderful as to fully absorb our curiosity.  The largest of these, about twenty feet in diameter, is boiling like a cauldron, throwing water and fearful volumes of sulphurous vapor higher than our heads.  Its color is a disagreeable greenish yellow.  The central spring of the group, of dark leaden hue, is in the most violent agitation, its convulsive spasms frequently projecting large masses of water to the height of seven or eight feet.  The spring lying to the east of this, more diabolical in appearance, filled with a hot brownish substance of the consistency of mucilage, is in constant noisy ebullition, emitting fumes of villainous odor.  Its surface is covered with bubbles, which are constantly rising and bursting, and emitting sulphurous gases from various parts of its surface.  Its appearance has suggested the name, which Hedges has given, of “Hell-Broth springs;” for, as we gazed upon the infernal mixture and inhaled the pungent sickening vapors, we were impressed with the idea that this was a most perfect realization of Shakespeare’s image in Macbeth.  It needed but the presence of Hecate and her weird band to realize that horrible creation of poetic fancy, and I fancied the “black and midnight hags” concocting a charm around this horrible cauldron.  We ventured near enough to this spring to dip the end of a pine pole into it, which, upon removal, was covered an eighth of an inch thick with lead-colored sulphury slime.

There are five large springs and half a dozen smaller ones in this basin, all of them strongly impregnated with sulphur, alum and arsenic.  The water from all the larger springs is dark brown or nearly black.  The largest spring is fifteen to eighteen feet in diameter, and the water boils up like a cauldron from 18 to 30 inches, and one instinctively draws back from the edge as the hot sulphur steam rises around him.  Another of the larger springs is intermittent.  The smaller springs are farther up on the bank than the larger ones.  The deposit of sinter bordering one of them, with the emission of steam and smoke combined, gives it a resemblance to a chimney of a miner’s cabin.  Around them all is an incrustation formed from the bases of the spring deposits, arsenic, alum, sulphur, etc.  This incrustation is sufficiently strong in many places to bear the weight of a man, but more frequently it gave way, and from the apertures thus created hot steam issued, showing it to be dangerous to approach the edge of the springs; and it was with the greatest difficulty that I obtained specimens of the incrustation.  This I finally accomplished by lying at full length upon that portion of the incrustation which yielded the least, but which was not sufficiently strong to bear my weight while I stood upright, and at imminent risk of sinking in the infernal mixture, I rolled over and over to the edge of the opening; and, with the crust slowly bending and sinking beneath me, hurriedly secured the coveted prize of black sulphur, and rolled back to a place of safety.