There are regions, some volcanic and some not, in which nearly all the springs are thermal and mineral; springs of pure and fresh water being so rare, they are there considered to be most precious treasures. One of these regions comprehends a large part of the plateau of Utah. In this place numerous thermal springs issue forth, to which have been given the vulgar names of the Beer, Steamboat, Whistle Springs, etc., and into one of which the Mormons plunge their neophytes. The springs which are not thermal are loaded with saline and calcareous matter. It is only in spring, at the time when the snow melts, that the springs, which then become very abundant, yield comparatively pure water. During the dry season, salt and carbonate of lime become concentrated in the nearly exhausted springs, and give to the liquid flow an unpalatable taste. Palgrave, the traveler, informs us that all the springs of the country of Hasa, in Arabia, are also thermal. It can readily be understood that when all these substances escape from the interior of the rocks, together with the water which holds them in solution, they must leave empty spaces in the earth. During the course of long centuries whole strata are dissolved, and, under a form more or less chemically modified, are brought up from the depths and distributed on the surface of the soil. The thermal waters of Bath, which are far from being remarkable for the proportion of mineral substances they contain, bring to the surface of the earth an annual amount of sulphates of lime and soda, and chlorides of sodium and magnesium, the cubic mass of which is not less than 554 cubic yards. It has also been calculated that one of the springs of Louèche, that of Saint Laurent, brings every year to the surface 8,822,400 pounds of gypsum, or about 2,122 cubic yards; this quantity is enough to lower a bed of gypsum a square mile in extent, more than five feet in one century. But this is only one spring, and we have reckoned one century only; if we think of the thousands of mineral springs which gush from the soil, and of the immensity of time during which their waters have flowed, some idea may be formed of the importance of the alterations caused by springs. In time they lower the whole mass of mountains, and, no doubt, after these sinkings, violent oscillations of the earth may often have taken place.