Boracic Add Lagoons of Tuscany, 273 



public nuisances, and gave to the surrounding country a charac- 

 ter which ahenated all attempts at improvement. 



Nor were the lagoons without real and positive dangers, for 

 the loss of life was certain where man or beast had the misfor- 

 tune to fall into any of those boiling baths. Cases frequently 



per 



of consid- 



erable eminence, met with a horrible death by being precipitated 

 into one of the lagoons. Legs were not unfrequently lost by 

 a false step into the smaller pits (putizze), where, before the 

 foot could be withdrawn, the flesh would be separated from 



the bone. 



That these lagoons, now a source of immense reveniiej should 

 have remained for ages unproductive ; that they should have 

 been so frequently visited by scientific men, to none of whom 

 (for ages at least) did the thought occur that they contained in 

 them mines of wealth, is a curious phenomenon ; nor is it less 

 remarkable, that it was left for a man, whose name and occupa- 

 tion are wholly disassociated from science, to convert these fn 

 tive vapors into substantial wealth. 



Though to the present proprietor (the Chevalier Larderel*) the 

 merit attaches of having given to the boracic lagoons the im- 

 mense importance they now possess, a succession of adventurers 

 had made many experiments, and had produced a considerable 

 quantity of boracic acid, but at a cost (from the expenditure of 

 combustible) which left but little profit.f The small value that 

 was attached to them may be seen in the fact, that the largest 

 and most productive district of the lagoons, that of Monte Cerboli, 

 was offered in perpetuity, so lately as 1818, at an annual ground- 

 rent of £T. 200/. or 6Z. 135. Ad, per annum, though it now pro- 



Uie peasant, who leaves fallow nine-tenths of the land. In the district of Ripar- 

 bella the landlords and cultivators have come to a sensible agreement, by appor- 

 tioning the lands in equal moieties. 



Many mineral waters are in the neighborhood of the lagoons, some of which 

 possess medical virtues, and are visited by the Tuscans in the bathing season. 



* While these sheets have been passing through the press the Grand Duke of 

 Tuscany has conferred on M. Larderel the title of Count de Pomerance. 



t Hoefer first announced the presence of boracic acid in the Maremman districts, 

 and xMascagni in his Commentaries suggests the manufacture of borax as an object 

 worthy of attention. Professor Gazzeri in 1807, made experiments, which how- 

 ever seemed to show that the quantity of boracic acid contained in the waters was 



too small to promise much success. 

 Vol. ii^xvii, No. 2.— July-October, 1839, 35 



