MONTHLY 



JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



VOL. III. OCTOBER, 1847. NO. 4. 



REMARKS ON THLNGS IN GENERAL No. IIL 



BV A KAMBLER IN THE MOUNTAINS OF VIRGINIA, 



JVtth Notes by the Editor of The Farmers' Library, to whom they were addressed. 



Warm Spkixgs, Bath Co., July 18, 1847. 



You need not be told that this is only one, however distinguished, out of a 

 great variety of medicinal springs that find their way to the surface of the earth 

 among these mountains of Western Virginia, passing in their way, as we must 

 suppose, close by fiery furnaces and through filters of salt — for here are, besides, 

 within a day or two's ride of each other, the Hot, the SK-eet,X\\e Red Sweet, the 

 White Sulphur and the Red Sulphur, and the Salt Sulphur and the Blue Sul- 

 phur Springs, claiming to be specifics for phthisis laryngitis, bronchitis — for dys- 

 pepsia and diarrhea — for diseases of the liver, the heart, the bladder and the 

 kidneys, and for all the other diseases and ills that flesh is heir to. Welling up 

 to the light half way between the great marts and thoroughfares of life and 

 business in the East and the West, it would seem as if they were intended to 

 draw together, in tiie season of most leisure, from all its extremes, brethren of 

 a common country for social and political communion ; and doubtless their po- 

 litical uses in this way would be equal to their sanatary effects, were it possible 

 to reach them as easily as railroads and steamboats take us in vast swarms to 

 other places of summer resort. In the place of hundreds tliere would be thou- 

 sands at all these mountam springs ; and yet it may be questioned whether, to 

 the valetudinarian of the cities, the long ride and jolting over the mountains is 

 not more than half the battle. When the late celebrated Dr. Brown, of Balti- 

 more, was consulted as to the particular waters best suited to his patients, he 

 usually inquired the distances respectively, and always recommended the most 

 distant place ! For those who would have something better than a mere hasty 

 newspaper notice, I would recommend Mr. Burke's " Mineral Springs of Vir- 

 ffinia." From recent personal experience I can speak yet only of the Warm 

 Springs — now, and for a few years past, under the immediate control of the pro- 

 prietor. Doctor John Brockonburgh, ibrmcr President of the Bank of Virginia. 



The Bath is of a circular form, forty feet in diameter and between five and six 

 feet deep, and so perlectly transparent that a man of Christian temper with half 

 an eve might read tlie words '• Honor the )'low in i'KKKi:iu:NrK to the .sword" 

 in ' small caps,' at the bottom of it. The depth, however, may be regulated at 

 pleasure, and very quickly, for as the water comes bubbling up from the bottom, 

 ar^u breaking in globules resembling quicksilver on iissurlVicc, the whole volume 

 of it passes off and is every moment renewed, at the rate of some thousand gal- 

 ions a minute. 



Truly has it been said by Col. Perkins, that all who have described this noble 

 fountain write with enthusiasm ; nor is it indeed to be wondered at, for the 



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