148 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



economy of most of these great places of summer resort, where some come to 

 get rid of ennui — some to empty and some to replenish their purses — some to 

 preserve and some to regain their health — you may yet have a thousand readers 

 in the country, toiling on their farms, to whom even the most imperfect sketch 

 of this one, among the most celebrated watering-places in the world, may not 

 be unacceptable. 



— The White Sulphur Spring itself, then, they may be told, is "situated in an 

 elevated and beautifully picturesque valley, hemmed in by mountains on every 

 side, and is in the midst of the celebrated 'spring region.' Its elevation above 

 tide-water is two thousand feet. It bursts with unusual boldness from rock- 

 lined apertures, and is inclosed by marble casements tive feet square and three 

 and a half feet deep. Its temperature is 62° Fahrenheit, and remains uniformly 

 the same, winter and summer. The principal spring yields about eighteen gallons 

 per minute, and is never increased or diminished by any changes of weather. 

 The water is perfectly clear and transparent, and deposits copiously, as it flows 

 over a rough and uneven surface of rocks, a white, and sometimes, under peculiar 

 circumstances, a red and black precipitate, composed in part of its saline ingre- 

 dients. Its taste and smell, fresh at the spring, are that of all waters strongly 

 impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas." 



The fountain is inclosed and covered by a circular edifice, about thirty feet in 

 diameter, and supported by pillars, like the cupola of a church or other public 

 building, except that in place of a weathercock, or some religious emblem, the 

 summit is embellished with a large marble figure of Hygeia, the goddess of 

 health, presented by the late Mr. Henderson of New-Orleans, in a spirit of grati- 

 tude for the benefit he had received at this noble fountain. Here, then, come the 

 visitors, early in the morning, to gulp down from two to six glasses of water, 

 impregnated chiefly with the sulphates of lime, of magnesia, and of soda. 



On this occasion, the ladies — God bless them ! — turn out in ihick-soled shoes, 

 shawls and bonnets, and seem by no means ambitious of being noticed; while 

 the coarser specimens of the human form divine come enveloped in full winter 

 costume. 



Within two hundred yards of the spring, in the center of the valley — which here 

 spreads out nearly to a plane surface — and at the lower end of a lawn of some 

 eight or ten acres, stands the Dhiing Hall, nearly two hundred feet long, with 

 its tables to accommodate, and servants to give the needful attention to, some 

 six hundred guests on occasion. 



For lodging and private comfort here the arrangements are altogether difl'erent 

 from those you meet at IMorthern watering-places. There the guests of each 

 establishment — sometimes from one to six hundred — eat and sleep all under one 

 roof; while here, at one coup cf mil, you see from one hundred and fifty to two 

 hundred cabins and cottages strung along, at a considerable elevation above the 

 spring, in curvilinear form, adapted to the sinuosities of the mountain-base that 

 skirts the valley, and other irregularities of the site ; but still making nearly an 

 oblong square, and occupying a line, I should think, of nearly a mile in its entire 

 length, inclosing an area of some ten or twelve acres, well set in blue-grass, 

 intersected with dry Avalks for exercise, and ornamented with that variety of trees 

 which seems characteristic of this region. Here the native Oak, in all its gran- 

 deur ; there the symmetrical Sugar Maple ; next again the Hickory ; and hard by 

 the Locust, of rapid growth itself and congenial to the growth of all about it. 



These beautiful forest trees have been so judiciously left and pruned as not to 

 conceal and smother what they were intended to shade and beautify ; and make, 

 with the cottages, especially when these are lighted up at night, altogether, a 

 fine panorama, that really seems like the work of magic as compared with my 

 remembrance of its original rude condition. 



Distinguished foreigners. Lord Morpeth among them, in their admiration, have 

 pronounced the bath at the "Warm Springs and the White Sulphur, for arrange- 

 ments and extent of accommodation, scenery, and health-giving qualities of the 

 water, far superior to any similar resorts in Europr. 



By the word cabins you are not to understand rude log huts — not at all ! These 

 are all of brick, or neatly framed, finished and painted, with a nice piazza sepa- 

 rately railed in for each ; and many of them, especially the "Baltimore Row," 

 displaying handsome and chaste specimens of architecture. This row belongs, 



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