now that we can scarcely doubt that heat,
instead of being a fluid, is a motion; now that
we learn, from the monogenesis and convertibility
of physical forces—excuse the hard words,
but I know of none clearer—that heat may
become light, magnetism, and the rest; and
vice versa, that each is convertible into the
other; it may be assumed that the heat of
ordinary life, with which we are familiar, is also
possessed of unknown influences.

Those influences, however, both known and
unknown, are limited; they have the qualities
which naturally belong to them, and no more.
But the heat which we meet with, in the course
of our daily life, is all derived, directly or
indirectly, from the sun. A coal fire is the sun's
rays stored in fossil vegetables; a peat, wood,
or charcoal fire, is the same fixed by plants of
more recent date. They are all the products
of the sun; and what that great luminary has
not shot into them, they cannot give out.

Now, assuming the theory of the central
heat, and that the earth on which we walk is
only a sort of egg-shell, enclosing a mass of
molten, semi-liquid, and liquid materials;
assuming La Place's theory of the nebular origin
of the Solar system: that the planets, including
the earth, result from zones successively
thrown off, condensing first into little suns,
and then cooling into planets, while the great
big central lump of the sun, after gathering
himself together, remains what he is: assuming
this, we may further speculate that the
outer zones of the nebula did not consist of
exactly the same materials as the central mass.
There are diversities in the constitution of the
fixed stars, diversities in the constitution of the
planets of our system, and doubtless diversities
in the constitution of the earth and the sun.
Consequently, earth-heat is probably endowed
with different properties from sun-heat.

The properties of earth-heat, genuine and
unadulterated, as it was when originally
detached from the grand solar nebula, are most
easily obtainable by the use of thermal waters,
i.e., the mineral waters which have issued hot
from the earth, from time immemorial. No
region of the civilised world is richer in these
than the Pyreneean chain. There are mineral
waters which are not thermal, and are therefore
not gifted with the mysterious, unspecified,
and, if you will, supposed, properties of earth-
heat. Sea-water is true mineral water: especially
that of the Mediterranean and other highly-
salted and extra-bitter seas. Heat those waters,
and you get hot mineral waters; but, I hold,
that you do not get true thermal waters;
because they are heated by fire, which is the same
as sun-heat, instead of by true unsophisticated
earth-heat. Note that there is a minor sort of
earth-heat, known to horticulturists as
geo-thermal heat, which preserves plunged plants
and sunk greenhouses from suffering from
severe cold in winter. This, if partly derived
from true earth-heat, is probably mainly
derived from an equilibrium in the distribution
of the heat conveyed to the earth's surface
by the rays of the sun.

When you have destroyed my notions about
the difference in the qualities of true earth-
heat and of sun-heat, there remain the facts,
that thermal waters are very curious things to
have dealings with; that they are dangerous
to tamper with, and that it is practical folly to
play with them. It may be said that medical
men insist on this from motives of interest,
and so frighten patients into payment of fees.
It may be so, in certain instances. But
medical men of the highest honour give the very
same warning, which, is supported by the
general tradition and belief of the country. And
be it remembered that the Pyreneean chain is
not a mere spot, nor inhabited by a single race
of men.

Visitors to the Pyrenees have often remarked
that, while among them, they experience a
sort of electrical influence, especially in the
neighbourhood of the thermal springs. I have
felt this myself. It is like the presentiment
of a thunderstorm: which, however, does not
come. Here, hot water breaks forth at many
points. It is people's own fault if they are
not clean. A fountain in the street, hard by,
has two jets, one hot, the other cold. When
we want warm water to wash with, we have it
fetched, not from the kitchen, but from a
spring steaming at the back of the house.
These springs, running incessantly and
abundantly, cannot be without effect.

Amélie-les-Bains has become what it is
entirely through the exertions of one Dr.
Pujade, now eighty-five years of age, and in
good health. The earth gave him the springs
and the situation; he did the rest. Once, when
an inhabitant of Bains-sur-Tech caught a five-
franc piece, he crossed himself, knowing it
would be long before he saw another. Now,
thanks to the doctor's Thermes—a boarding-
house and thermal establishment combined—
strangers have made money more plentiful.
Houses, châlets, and châteaux, are building in
all directions; for ourselves, we have only
to breathe, bathe, and bask. There are
plenty of lodgings to let; but we favoured
the venerable doctor with our patronage, not
to mention the convenience (thermal sources
being under the same roof) of going to our
bath or douche in our dressing-gown and
slippers. There is also a pulverisation of the
water by a curious mechanical process, for
inhalation by weak larynxes, and a "piscine,"
or hot swimming-bath, partly hollowed out in
the native rock, which can be emptied in a
few minutes, and refilled in a couple of hours.
The temperature of this, and the vapours from
it, make it a perfect sudatorium or perspiring
hall. The establishment is perched at
the mouth of a gorge, opening into a sort
of Happy Valley on a largish scale, and
with the possibility of escaping from it. On
the heights overhead hang mighty lumps of
stone. Romantic walks among the rocks are
traced around it, greatly exciting the hopes
of fern-hunters. There are plenty of
picturesque shady alleys; not our thick shade of
beeches and hornbeams, but the flickering,