174 SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



assemblies 5 and the studious have an easy supply of all kinds of 

 books. There are two large stone bridges turned over the river. 

 The stone with which the fine buildings in this city are erected is dug 

 out of the quarries upon Charlton down, and conveyed down a steep 

 hill, by a four-wheeled carriage of a particular form and structure ; 

 the wheels are of cast iron, broad and low, with a groove in the 

 perimeter to keep them on the pieces of wood on which the carriage 

 moves down hill with four or five ton weight of stone, very easily 

 without the help of horses, the motion being moderated by means 

 of a friction-lever bearing more or less on their hinder wheel, as 

 occasion requires. 



The walls of Bath are almost entire; the small circuit of ground 

 encompassed by these walls i^ in the form of a pentagon, with four 

 gates beside a postern. Without the walls is a handsome square, 

 in the centre of which is an obelisk seventy feet high. The market, 

 house is a large stone building, supported by thirty-one stone 

 pillars, and over it is the town hall. Here is a general hospital for 

 the reception of the sick and lame poor from all parts of the king, 

 dom, erected in 1738, by the contributions of the nobility and 

 gentry of the kingdom, and is capable of containing one hundred 

 and fifty patients. Another new square has been built in the 

 gardens adjacent to the public walks, on the south side of the city, 

 by the Avon, where is a noble room for balls and public assemblies. 



WELLS is situated at the foot of Mendip-hills, a hundred and 

 twenty miles west of London, and twenty south-west of Bristol, 

 and has its name from the wells and springs about the city. It is 

 but of small extent, though well inhabited. 



BRISTOL, called by the Saxons Brightjloto t is one hundred and 

 seventeen miles from London, partly ia Somersetshire, and partly 

 in Glocestershire, but being a county of itself, is independent of 

 them both. It is divided by the river Avon, which runs through 

 i , vJ separates the two preceding counties, but that part which 

 is on tee Glocestershiie sk!e is liie largest and most populous: 

 according to a survey made in the year 1736, the circumference on 

 the Giocestershire side was four miles and a half, and on the 

 Somersetshire side two and a half. This city has a stone bridge of 

 four broad arches over the Avon; and one of the most commodious 

 quays in England for shipping aud landing merchandise. This is the 



