364 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 166q, 



12. The bath guides live to a very great age, sometimes to near 100 years; 

 ordinarily, if they are temperate, to 70. There are two at this time above 80, 

 a man and his wife. 



13. In the cross-bath the guides have observed a certain black fly with sealed 

 wings, in the form of a lady cow, but somewhat bigger. They say it shoots 

 quick in the water, and , sometimes bites. It lives under the water, and is 

 never found but in very hot weather. 



14. The cross-bath eats out silver exceedingly; and I am told, that a shilling 

 in a week's time has been so corroded by it, that it might be wound about one's 

 finger. * The baths agree with brass, but not with iron, for they will eat out a 

 ring of this metal in seven years, when brass rings seem to receive no prejudice 

 at all from them. 



15. When women have washed their hair with the mixture of beaten eggs and 

 oatmeal, this will poison the bath so, as to beget a most noisome smell, casting 

 a sea-green on the water, which otherwise is very pure and limpid. This will 

 taint the very walls, and there is no cleansing of it, but by drawing the bath. 



16. In summer the baths purge up a green scum on the top, but never in 

 winter; but then leave a yellow on the walls. 



17. The walls of the hot springs are very deep-set, and large; 10 feet thick, 

 and 14 deep from the level of the street. The cement of the wall is tallow, 

 clay, lime and beaten bricks. In the year 1659, the hot bath (a bath particu- 

 larly so called, of equal heat with the king's bath) was much impaired by the 

 breaking out of a spring, which the workmen at last found again, and restored. 

 In digging they came to a firm foundation of factitious matter, which had holes 

 in it like a pumice-stone, through which the water played; so that it is pro- 

 bable the springs were brought together by art; which probably was the necro- 

 mancy, the people of ancient times believed and reported to have contrived and 

 made these baths, as in a very ancient manuscript chronicle I find these words : 

 " When Lud Hidibras was dead, Bladud his son, a great nygromancer (so it is 

 there writ) was made king, and he made the wonder of the hot bath by his ny- 

 gromancy, and he reigned 21 years, and after he died, and lies at the new 

 Troy." And in another old chronicle it is said, that king Bladud sent for necro- 

 mancers to Athens to effect this great business ; who probably were no other 

 than cunning artificers, well skilled in architecture and mechanics. -|~ 



by the accurate observations of later writers. This author does not duly discriminate between the in- 

 ternal and external use of these springs. 



* This corrosion of silver by the Bath waters will not readily be credited by those who are ac- 

 quainted witli the chemical properties of these springs. 



+ Whoever wishes for any thing like accurate observation on the Bath waters^ eitlier in respect to 



