CATARACTS, AND INUNDATIONS. 163 



they suppose to have undergone the same fate with their habi- 

 tation. 



Among the Alps are sereral mineral springs and warm baths. 

 In Swisserland and Germany there are four towns which bear the 

 name of Baden, from the is arm baths which render them remark- 

 able. In BADEN, the capital of a country bordering on the canton 

 of Zurich, the baths were famous even at the commencement of 

 the Christian aera. They are about a quarter of a mile below the 

 town, on both sides the river Limmat. The largest of them are at 

 Itnrapen, a pretty little borough, which consists of handsome 

 houses seated on an eminence. It is computed that the water is 

 conveyed by no less than sixty canals to the several inns and private 

 houses. They come from various springs by the side of the river, 

 and it is said from one in the midst of the river itself. The waters 

 are hot in the third degree, and impregnated with sulphur, alum, 

 and nitre. The springs always rise to the same level, without 

 increase or decrease, but are thought to have most virtue about 

 the beginning of May and September, because they then abound 

 most with the sulphuric acid. 



The water is good for drinking as well as bathing, and is recom- 

 mended for the cure of distempers, not only of the hot kind, as 

 fevers, but for those proceeding from cold humours, pains in the 

 head, vertigos, &c. disorders in the breast and bowels, asthmas 

 and obstructions. In the centre of the place is the Poor's bath, 

 called St. Verena's, formed by a spring that rises in the very middle 

 of the street. Here the poor people bathe in an open situation ; 

 and its waters being esteemed a cure for sterility in women, it is 

 said that scarce any young woman of distinction marries in this 

 country without making it an article in the marriage-contract that 

 her husband shall take her every year to the baths ot Baden ; the 

 ladies being here permitted to wear those dresses, and allowed 

 those diversions, that are prohibited in other parts of Swisserland, 

 Blainville observes, that those who bathe in the public baths, are 

 generally such as cannot afford the expense of the private ones, 

 have their shoulders cupped in them, and that instead of cupping- 

 glasses they use large rams or bucks-horns ; so that in these baths 

 are sometimes seen two or three hundred naked persons of both 

 sexes, with horns on their shoulders. The people who stay at 

 Imrapen for the use of the baths, are obliged to buy the water they 



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