MINERAL SPRINGS OF EASTERN FRANCE. 511 



afterward a sedative effect. A bath of an hour and a half will slow the 

 circulation, and depress the muscular forces ; but the baths are not 

 now prescribed of such length as formerly. 



And their virtues ? They are employed with success in the follow- 

 ing classes of ailments : 



(a.) Flatulent and acid dyspepsias, with atony of the digestive 



system. 



(b.) Rheumatism and gout. 



(c.) Female complaints, especially neuralgia and engorgement of 



the uterus. 



(d.) Chronic neuralgias of various kinds. Dr. Lietard, the courteous 

 inspector, and Drs. Leclere, Bottentuit, and Daviller, are among the 

 most prominent consulting physicians of the place. 



I should add that the environs of Plombieres are very attractive. 

 The village has about eighteen hundred inhabitants ; it stands where 

 the railroad ceases to climb the valley of the Augronne, and its two or 

 three pretty streets hang along the sides of the valley like terraces, 

 here and there connected by steep stairways built in the hill-side and 

 leading from one level to another. 



There are pretty excursions, as everywhere in this part of France. 

 The Ferme Jacquot, the Fontaine Stanislas, the valley of the Se- 

 mouze, the Yal d'Ajol, Herival and its ruins, Saint-Etienne, a curious 

 town of the seventh century, and the picturesque city of Remiremont, 

 mountain-girdled, with the ruins of the ancient abbey these are 

 among the places to see. For a longer excursion, one should spend 

 two days in visiting Gerardmer and the mountain-lake, high among 

 the Vosges. But I need not specify any more pretty places in a 

 country which is so beautiful as the east of France. 



2. Luxeutl, in the Haute-Saone. This is a pleasant little town, 

 about three thousand years old, near the new Alsatian boundary of 

 France, an afternoon's drive from Plombieres. In spite of thirty 

 centuries' growth, it has not as yet touched the round number of four 

 thousand inhabitants, though during the season, from the 15th of May 

 to the end of September, the place is flooded with guests. Luxeuil lies 

 in a rolling country not a mountainous one, but at an elevation 

 (1,325 feet above sea-level) that gives cool, sometimes chilly, summer 

 nights. The climate, however, is not a variable one, and one sleeps 

 soundly at night at Luxeuil. 



Judged by an American standard, its temperatures are equable, 

 and their uniformity is increased by the protection which Luxeuil finds 

 in a range of hills upon the north, covered with ancient forests the 

 haute futaie of the French classification. There, as elsewhere in France, 

 the forestry department takes account of each tree in the forests, and 

 they are classified according to their ages with systematic accuracy. 

 The ages that divide the classes are forty, sixty, one hundred and 

 twenty, two hundred, and lastly over two hundred years ; and for 



