phosphuretted hydrogen in the form of a
flame. The waters were always in favour
with royalty: Catherine of Braganza came
to them, and so, in sixteen hundred and
eighty-seven, did Mary of Modena; and the
history of Bath in the eighteenth century
exhibits constant increase of prosperity. The
spring that supplies the King's Bath rises at
the temperature of a hundred and sixteen
degrees. The Bath waters have stimulant
properties, and are beneficial in nervous and
paralytic as well as gouty and rheumatic
affections, and diseases of the skin.

The Clifton waters are inferior to those of
Bath in strength of saline ingredients, and
also in temperature, for their heat does not
exceed seventy-six degrees. As a spa, Clifton
is now of little importance; and the qualities
of the place as a healthy residence, combined
with its romantic scenery, are thought to
constitute its real advantages.

Buxton— the only mountain-spa in
England—its elevation is a thousand feet above
the sea— is of course much indebted to its
situation amidst the wondrous scenery of the
Peak, and to its interesting walks and bracing
air. Buxton, like Bath, retains many traces
of the regard paid by the Romans to good
mineral springs; but one such monument,
namely the wall of Roman bricks about the
well of Anne the Saint, was destroyed in the
reign of Anne the Queen. The water is still
chiefly used externally. There's sense in
that. I don't mind water myself as an
external application, but I can't very well
drink it when it's sweet, and I won't drink
it when its nasty. This observation is
marked private. Io! Io! In the reign of
Henry the Eighth it was customary for sick
people to resort to Buxton, who—not having
the fear of Thomas Cromwell before their
eyes—superstitiously hung, as in old times
accustomed, their votive offerings upon the
walls of Saint Anne's chapel, and—what was
worse the poor men among the votaries
used to beg—offences which the Tudor
Parliament took care to interdict. Mary, Queen
of Scots, appears to have resorted often to
Buxton under the stern escort of the Earl of
Shrewsbury, who erected that building at
the well in which registers of cures were for
many years preserved amongst rows of
crutches left by the cured. Humph! Ah!
Well!

Out of England we must spare a word for
Spa, that great mineral spring of Belgium
which is so renowned that its name has been
given to all mineral waters. The copious
escape there of carbonic acid gas gives a kind
of life to the Water, and aids its remedial
efficacy.

The spas of Germany, however, have for
the most part become so well known in
England that I shall say very little about them.
From the hills of Nassau mineral waters of
various descriptions spring; and besides the
Selters water, which is drunk as a luxury in
every quarter of the globe, bright sparkling
remedies are said to be found for almost every
disorder. As Sir Francis Head observes, the
consumptive or dyspeptic patient is sent to
Ems; the worn invalid in search of tonic and
strengthening agents to Langen Schwalbach
(the swallow's stream); if the brain requires
calming, the nerves soothing, and the skin
softening, he goes to Schlangenbad (the
serpents' bath); and if he be rheumatic he may
lose his aches in the hot springs of Wiesbaden.
The effect of the iron springs of Schwalbach
has been compared to that of a tan-pit; and
in the same category we find the mud-baths
for which Franzenbad is celebrated. The
peaty mud there used is diluted with mineral
water, and the mixture is compared to a soft
poultice of bread steeped in ink. Nice, very!
But no matter. lo pæan! off we go again!
Such a remedy was known to the ancients, and
was revived in a modified manner at the close
of the last century, when a certain Doctor
Graham went about recommending earth-
baths. He was accompanied by a nymph
whom he styled the Goddess of Health, and
the doctor and his goddess might be seen
separately buried up to the neck, he with his
powdered head and pigtail just above the
ground. His patients, when induced to put
themselves in this helpless situation, are said
to have been made the objects of a refined
cruelty, the doctor having permitted a wild
preacher to come and worry them while
undergoing their sentence in the earth-
baths. Much more agreeable are those
mud-baths at Saint Arnaud in France, in
which the patients play at cards and receive
visits.

Of the bath of Langen Schwalbach no
inviting account can be given. The mixture is
best described as resembling a horse-pond,
and being about the colour of mullagitawny
soup. What would my patients, if ever I
had any, have said, if I had ducked one of
them in a horse- pond ? But lo! lo! It
is so deeply tinged with the red oxide
of iron that the body is invisible three
inches below the surface. The temperature
strikes the bather as neither hot nor cold,
but the water is felt to be of a bracing,
strengthening nature. Its solitary virtue of
strengthening the stomach has been declared
to be the secret of its power in almost every
disorder of body and mind, for every malady
is said to be either by highways or byways
connected with the stomach. In the time of
the Romans, Schwalbach, then in a forest,
was known for the medicinal effects of its
sulphurous and other fountains, and a small
street sprang up adjacent to the well.

A fact in the history of Pyrmont in
Westphalia shows the influence of fashion upon
spas. Three hundred years ago those
celebrated chalybeate waters were so renowned
that people flocked to them from all parts.
More than ten thousand persons are said to
have come in a month, and a camp was