43 



"thermal temperature will not be explained as long 

 "as the place from which those ingredients proceed, 

 "remains unknown." 



The problem of animal heat has not engaged the 

 attention of more eminent men, than the cause of the 

 high temperature of the Carlsbad waters. Bohuslas 

 de Lobkowitz proposed poetically that question (p. 11), 

 and, after him, a series of learned physicians, chy- 

 mists, mineralogists and geologists: Frederick Hoff- 

 mann, Gottfried Berger, Bruckner, B. L. Tralles, 

 David Becher, Klaproth, Leopold de Buch, Gilbert, 

 Berzelius , de Hoff , offered, instead of proofs, inge- 

 nious conjectures 5 each pointed out the weak sides 

 of his predecessor's opinion, and proposed a new 

 theory, but all acknowledged the impossibility of 

 ascertaining the operations of that deep and myste- 

 rious boiler, anterior to history, coeval to Creation. 

 Masses of hornstein , of sulfuret of iron , of fossil 

 coals, imbedded in the granite of Carlsbad, volcanos, 

 earthquakes , revolutions of the globe , comparisons 

 between the external forms of our environs with 

 those of such regions (France and Iceland) , where 

 hot springs are found ; subterraneous electric or gal- 

 vanic action 5 violent friction of vegetable, animal, 

 bituminous substances, heated to ignition 5 erudition, 

 sagacity, analogy, every means in short have been 

 tried to resolve the problem of thermal temperature 5 

 but, in our dark ignorance of the anatomy and phy- 

 siology of the bowels of the earth , of which we 

 scarcely know more than the integuments, that gordian 



