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CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 115' 



side to side, like a pendulum ; others were rearing one of their ex- 

 tremities from the prostrate to the vertical posture ; and other gi- 

 gantic bino-gastric creatures, disentangling themselves from the 

 trammels of many green fibres, advance majestically with an extra- 

 ordinary figure, and devour most gluttonously the monas, the ato- 

 mus, the guttttla, and numberless other matters, as they appear 

 in succession. Whenever the smallest imaginable portion of the 

 stalactitious tubuli is broken into powder, and subjected to the mi- 

 croscope, it is shown to consist of most beautiful and delicate crys- 

 tals, distinctly defined ; its ultimate molecules appeared, to Dr. G.'s 

 eye, to be endowed with movement. Neither of the experimenting 

 Doctors seem to have conceived the idea that the Coiifervce ther- 

 males vegetating externally to the cavern, might be the pear-shaped 

 capsules of the schlegm, with their felty pericarps, vegetating in ill- 

 aired darkness within it, but farther developed under the genial 

 action of light and the atmospheric air. 



Carlsbad is " King of the Mineral Springs." Dr. Granville 

 places it at the head of his seven Bohemian Spas, forming a " third 

 geographical group," which, besides their king, includes those of 

 Marienbad, Egra, PuUner, Seidschutz, Seidlitz, and Toeplitz, each 

 with its peculiar excellencies and attractions. 



Sprudel, the brudel, or bubbler, of Carlsbad, is the chief of seven 

 streams that burst through a calcareous crust, and launch on high a 

 column of hot water, which, in descendinfr, assumes the semblance 

 of a liquid weeping-willow. At a very early hour of morning — 

 when, in these unsophisticated retreats of invalids, all the world is 

 up and stirring — the Doctor hurried to " that most extraordinary 

 phenomenon of Nature," with all the impatience of one who is eager 

 to satisfy himself, by ocular demonstration, of the truth of what 

 seemed almost fabulous in description. Nevertheless, at the sight 

 of that celebrated fountain, to which the curling vapours that ho- 

 vered over its colonnaded temple directed him without a guide or a 

 question, he felt that all the descriptions he had read of it had failed 

 to convey the impression he experienced. The sudden view of the 

 violent, lofty, constant, and prodigal out-pourings of hot water from 

 the bowels of the earth, foaming in the midst of its clouds of va- 

 pour, within forty-five degrees of the boiling point, on the very 

 margin of the Teple, a cold, placid, and sluggish stream — this sud- 

 den view rivetted him to the spot for a brief period. Although 

 pressed on all sides by the increasing throng of water-drinkers, he 

 felt himself alone, absorbed by this striking object. He stood con- 

 templating it for some minutes, foolishly imagining that the next 

 moment would reveal the secret of this natural magic. But the 

 crowd of eager invalids who surrounded it, keeping at a respectful 

 distance from its scorching spray, seemed to look for health in the 

 spring, without ever thinking, as he did, of the two great agents 

 combined — heat and water, with a sprinkling of soda — from which 

 they were to obtain it. Monologizing gravely, he asks himself, 

 " What is it that imparts to this mysterious current that violent im- 



