MINERAL SPRINGS OF NEW YORK. 145 



angelic the expression of the outer husk may be,) by the 

 purgative action of the Saratoga waters upon said intes- 

 tines of the fashionable world that resort to its famed foun- 

 tains, would be followed by the most brilliant results.* We 

 accordingly find that it is thus that this great assimilative 

 cavity, with its contained organs, are impressed; also, the 

 long complicated chains of sympathetic connections with 

 other parts of the system modified and rearranged health- 

 fully, Epsom salts and common salt being the great sani- 

 tary forces. Much is said of the alterative properties of 

 these waters, as great reorganizers upon all the tissues and 

 organs, by the use of those said to contain iodine and iron, 

 in connection with those containing salts and gases. In all 

 this catalogue of distinguished achievements of Congress 

 and other waters, it might be desirable to know just the 

 influence of certain excursions to Saratoga Lake, Long 

 Lake, and Lake George, together with fishing excursions, 

 and exercise of all kinds, assisted by the " balsamic and 

 turpentine qualities of the air t impregnated with the pine 

 and other forest-trees," in the assistance and furtherance 

 of the action of said waters. 



There are still other acidulous waters, varying slightly in 



* On this subject, as involving literary and scientific issues in the 

 great problem of the incarnation of the soul, it may be remarked that 

 the effects of castor- oil upon the intellect and moral sentiments have 

 long been known, at least to medical philosophers. How much of 

 the heavens, in certain directions, could have been cleared up by the 

 judicious application of vegetable or saline cathartics how much of 

 the atra-bilious tint bleached out of the theologies by blue-mass and 

 Seidlitz powders; and how many of the gases, of the offensive and 

 poisonous order, at least, could have been kept from penetrating the 

 philosophies, by the chewing of rhubarb or aloes, and securing the 

 perfectly regulated function of the large intestine. 



This is a ghastly realm of human thought, carrying the mind into 

 fearful abysses of speculation ; but, at the same time, immensely rich 

 in its resources, startling in its suggestions, and portentous in its reve- 

 lations and demonstrations, especially in the departments of Theo- 

 logy, Metaphysics, and Poetry. 



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