32 



rupture of the boiler had taken place. The various 

 boring and probing instruments penetrated through 

 the calcareous crust, from one cavity to the other, 

 till they reached at last an immense reservoir, the 

 boundaries of which could not be attained by thirty 

 fathoms length of poles, joined together, directed 

 towards the Market -Place and the Hirschensprung. 

 That a great part of the town stands upon these 

 cavities, is sufficiently demonstrated, whenever the 

 foundation of a new house is laid 5 copious streams 

 of carbonic acid gaz are, moreover, incessantly seen 

 bubbling in the river, near the wells. 



Situated on the right bank of the Teple, in the 

 centre of the town, the Sprudel, to which superior 

 powers are attributed, is 60 R. or 168 F. It has 

 various orifices, but two only are adapted to public 

 use. One of them is exclusively called the Sprudel ; 

 the other, named Hygiaeia, on account of the statue 

 of that goddess, placed near it, flows in a regular 

 stream out of a pewter -pipe. Its vapour supplies 

 our steam-baths. The broad square stones and long 

 boards placed over the thermal chaldron, answer the 

 purpose of a cuirass against the large masses of ice 

 and floating trees, which, in their rapid course, when 

 a thaw or an inundation takes place, might, like bat- 

 tering rams, break through the crust, and disturb the 

 equilibrium indispensable to the regular spouting of 

 the mineral water. In order to prevent such rup- 

 tures , whose cicatrisation is always slow , trouble- 

 some and expensive, the incrustation of its orifices is 



