SPRINGS MEDICINAL!, : MINETY, WOOTTON BASSETT, &C. 25 



Memorandum. In this village are severall springs, which tast brackish ; which I had not the leisure 

 to try, but onely by prsecipitation, and they yield a great quantity of the white flower-like sediment. 



Bitteston. At the George Inne, the beere that is brewed of the well there is diuretique. I knew 

 some that were troubled with the stone and gravell goe often thither for that reason. The woman 

 of the house was very much troubled with fitts of the mother ; and having lived here but a quarter 

 of a yeare, found herself much mended ; as also her mother, troubled with the same disease. I 

 observed in the bottome of the well deep blew marie. 



[The hysterical paroxysms to which females are peculiarly subject were in Aubrey's time com- 

 monly termed " the mother," or " fits of the mother." Dr. Edward Jorden published a " Discourse on 

 the Suffocation of the Mother," (4to.) in 1603. J. B.] 



Alderton, M r . Gore's well is a hard water, which, when one washes one's hands will make them 

 dry, as if it were allume water. I tryed it by precipitation, and the sediment was the colour of 

 barme, white and yellow, and fell hi a kind of flakes, as snow sometimes will fall, whereas all the 

 other sediments were like fine flower or powder. 



In Minety Common in Bradon forest, neer the rode which leadeth to Ashton Caynes, is a boggy 

 place called the Gogges, where is a spring, or springs, rising up out of fuller's earth. This 

 puddle in hot and dry weather is candid like a hoar frost ; which to the tast seemes nitrous. I 

 have seen tlu's salt incrustation, even 14 th September, four foot round the edges. With half a pound 

 of this earth I made a lixivium. Near half a pint did yield upon evaporation a quarter of an ounce 

 wanting two graines. Of the remainder of the lixivium, wliich was more than a pint, I evaporated 

 almost all to crystallize in a cellar. The liquor turned very red, and the crystalls being putt on a red 

 hott iron flew away immediately, like saltpetre, leaving behind a very little quantity of something that 

 look'd like burnt allum. Now it is certain that salts doe many tunes mixe ; and M r . Robert Boyle 

 tells me hee believes it is sea-salt mix't with 05, and there is a way to separate them. After a 

 shower this spring will smoake. The mudd or earth cleanses and scowres incomparably. A pike of 

 eighteen foot long will not reach to the bottome. 



My Lady Cocks of Dumbleton told me that ladies did send ten miles and more for water from a 

 spring on Malverne hill in Worcestershire to wash their faces and make 'em faire. I believe it 

 was such a nitrous spring as this. 



The fuller's earth which they use at Wilton is brought from Woburne in Bedfordshire ; and sold 

 for ten groates a bushell. 



The Baths may have its tinging vertue from the antimonie in Mendip. Quaere Mr. Kenrick, 

 that when he changed a sixpence holding it in his hand it turned yellow, and a woman refused it 

 for bad silver. I tliinke he had been making crocus of antimonie. The chymists doe call anti- 

 mony Proteus, from its various colouring. 



Mr. T. Hanson, of Magd. Coll. Oxon, acquaints me in a letter of May 18, 1691, that he observes 

 that almost all the well-waters about the north part of Wiltshire were very brackish. At High- 

 worth, Mr. Allmon, apothecary, told him he had often seen a quantity of milke coagulated with it : 

 and yet the common people brew with it, which gives then- beer an ungratefull tast At Cricklad 

 their water is so very salt that the whole town are obliged to have recourse to a river hard by for 

 their necessary uses. At Wootton Basset, at some small distance from the town, they have a medi- 

 cinall spring, which a neighbouring divine told him D r . Willis had given his judgment of, viz. that 



