214 BAILLY. 
Amidst the various labours that are required by every 
large town, the Eschevin thinks, some one day, that he has 
discovered an infallible way of revenging himself of spe- 
cialties. Guided by the light of modern geology, it has 
been proposed to go with an immense sounding line in 
hand, to seek in the bowels of the earth the incalculable 
quantities of water, that from all eternity circulate there 
without benefiting human nature, to make them spout up to 
the surface, to distribute them in various directions, in large 
cities, until then parched, to take advantage of their high 
temperature, to warm economically the magnificent con- 
servatories of the public gardens, the halls of refuge, 
the wards of the sick in hospitals, the cells of mad- 
men. But according to the old geology of the Eschevin, 
promulgated perhaps by his nurse, there is no circulation 
in subterranean water; at all events, subterranean water 
cannot be submitted to an ascending force and rise to the 
surface; its temperature would not differ from that of 
common well-water. The Eschevin, however, agrees to 
the expensive works proposed. ‘Those works, he says, 
will afford no material result; but once for all, such fan- 
tastic projects will receive a solemn and rough contradic- 
tion, and we shall then be liberated for ever from the 
odious yoke under which science wants to enslave us. 
However, the subterranean water appears. It is true 
that a clever engineer had to bore down 548 métres (or 
600 yards) to find it; but thence it comes transparent as 
crystal, pure as if the product of distillation, warmed as 
physical laws had shown that it would be, more abun- 
dant indeed than they had dared to foresee, it shot up 
thirty-three métres above the ground. 
Do not suppose, Gentlemen, that putting aside wretched 
views of self-love, the Eschevin would applaud such a 
