an Intermitting Brine Spring near Kissingen. 307 



the river Saal was the " flumen gignendo Sale foecundum " 

 described by Tacitus, * signalized by a battle between the 

 Hermiinduri and Catti ; but certain it is, that early in the 

 ninth century the salt-works of Kissingen were already of some 

 importance, and the property of them presented by individuals 

 to the neighbouring monastery of Fulda. The lower saline or 

 salt-work of these early times existed on the right bank of the 

 Saal, opposite to the village of Kissingen, whilst the upper saline 

 was an English mile higher up the valley, on the left bank, 

 and corresponded in fact to what is now called the lower sa- 

 line. At different subsequent epochs efforts were made by the 

 Prince Bishops of Wiirtzburg, and others, to render the salt 

 product more valuable, and at present, through means which 

 I shall presently state in detail, it has become rather a valuable 

 source of revenue to the Bavarian Government, yielding about 

 25,000 Bavarian hundredweights of salt annually. 



The resort of strangers to the baths of Kissingen (which 

 are supplied by springs quite distinct from the saliferous 

 ones), has been traced by the antiquarian zeal of Jager,*f" 

 back to the middle of the sixteenth century, who has also cited 

 twelve medical works published regarding them, between 1836 

 and 1821. The minute history of these springs (which are 

 three in number, the Ragozzi, Pandur, and Maximilian's 

 Brunnen) need not detain us, as they do not form the principal 

 objects of this paper. Within a few years, Kissingen has be- 

 come a place of fashionable resort for Germans, and especially 

 for Russians of fortune. The numbers on the Kurliste amount 

 to 2500 or 3000 annually ; the lodging-houses have augmented 

 surprisingly in number, and the King has built public rooms 

 at his own expense. 



To understand the full interest attaching to the phenomena 

 of mineral springs in this country, we must attend to them 

 collectively, and also to the geology of the neighbouring dis- 

 trict. 



The general course of the Saal may be considered as from 



* Ann. xiii. 57. See Jager Geschichte des Stadtchens Kissingen und 

 seiner Mineralquellen. 

 t Geschichte, &c. p. 23. 



