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 metres (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 metres above the ground. 



Do not suppose, Gentlemen, that putting aside wretched 

 views of self-love, the Eschevin would applaud such a 



