146 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



world, as he says, " may be well challenged for its equal." Its temperature, 

 buoyancy, refractive power, transparency — all invest it with indescribable luxury 

 to the feelings and the sight ; and no less truly has it been added by Mr. Burke 

 that the effect on the human frame is dazzling ; could Damon have caught a 

 glance at his Musidora in such a bath, it were indeed a trial of Love's respectful 

 modesty to withdraw his gaze ! 



" Then to the flood she rushed ; the parted flood 

 Its lovely guest with closing waves received, 

 And every beauty softening, every grace 

 Flushing anew, a mellow lustre shed. 

 As shines the lily through the crystal mild. 

 Or as the rose amid the morning dew 

 Fresh from Aurora's hand more sweetly glows '' 



The water of this celebrated spring is of the average temperature of 98° — the 

 same in winter as in summer. It and the gas which is constantly escaping from 

 it, have been carefully analyzed by Prof. Rogers, and from this account, says 

 Mr. Burke, they appear to contain neutral salts and various gases, Avhich act as 

 a gentle aperient, diuretic and diaphoretic. The large proportion of Epsom salts, 

 he says, doubtless gives the water its aperient quality, while the carbonic acid it 

 is found to contain, and sulphuretted hydrogen, give tone and energy to the 

 stomach. 



The bath itself is so captivating and voluptuous that it becomes necessary to' 

 warn those who enjoy it for the first time against too long indulgence. Mr. Jef- 

 ferson is said to have done himself serious injury in that way, but he' would 

 plunge and remain in it nearly an hour at a time, three times a day. An account 

 of this bath appeared some time since in the Southern Literary Messenger, with 

 the simple averment, as to the accommodations and comforts, that they were 

 " fully equal to those of any watering-place in Virginia." The writer might 

 have fearlessly said, if they were as good and as ample then as now, that they 

 were equal to any in the United States. How, indeed, could it be otherwise ? — 

 owned and managed as this establishment now is, under the personal supervision 

 of one of the very best bred and most traveled gentlemen of the Old Dominion 

 in her palmiest days — with his own cooks and servants, brought up from Rich- 

 mond, where his house, ever the seat of the most refined and liberal hospitality, 

 will long be remembered by those whose learning, refinement and patriotism 

 gave them claims to its enjoyment. The roads through all these mountains have 

 been well graded, and made as good and safe as mountain roads can be. The 

 Warm Springs Mountain, through a gap of which you come in sight of this es- 

 tablishment at the distance of a mile, as you approach it to breakfast, is one of 

 the most lofty in the range to which it belongs, being nearly 3,000 feet above 

 tide-water. All along the ridge of it immense rocks break through the green 

 covering, in naked and irregular projections, like so many enormous vertebra. 

 Climbing to the top of the middle and highest one of these, you get a prospect 

 of vast extent on all sides, reaching eastward even to the "Blue Ridge." And 

 here, on the face of this eternal rock, braving lightning and ram, tempest and 

 sunshine, instead of a host of obscure names, inscribed usually in such places as 

 so many vain memorials of egotism and vanity, you find only the letters 

 ' H. Clay,' deeply engraved by one of his many votaries. Appropriate tablet for 

 such a name !— at once elevated and enduring ! After all, he but shares the com- 

 mon lot of men possessed of great intellectual power, animated by a fervid, un- 

 compromising temperament. If they raise up many implacable enemies, they 

 surround themselves also with a host of ardent friends, bound to them by their 

 high qualities as with "hooks of steel." 



But I must not forget to tell you how, and how soon, you can be put down in 

 the midst of these mountain springs, should you be disposed to come. You leave 

 Baltimore any day — we will say Thursday morning at half past seven — dine at 

 Harper's Ferry, and reach Winchester by the Railroad, in time to depart that af- 

 ternoon in the' stage ; you breakfast on Friday morning at Harrisburg, and reach 

 Stanton by an excellent Macadamized turnpike, on Friday to dinner ; sup and 

 lodge quietly that night at Cloverdale, and on Saturday morning breakfast here 

 at the Warm Springs, and before night arrive at the celebrated old "White Sul- 

 phur" — where, as I learn, my old friend Caldwell still nourishes, as it were in 

 " perpetual youth." May he still so live another " three score and ten," Avith 

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