VOL. L.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 69 



received their present name of Carlsbad, or Charles's bath.'* These waters, 

 soon coming into repute, occasioned the building of a small neat town, consist- 

 ing chiefly of houses calculated for the accommodation of the company, who 

 frequent this place in the summer-time. There are 2 warm springs, which rise 

 in the middle of the town, very near each other ; and though they are supposed 

 to be of the same quality, yet as one is much warmer, it is thought likewise to 

 be more efficacious than the other. The former of these, called the Prudel, 

 rises very near the bed of the small river Tepel, which runs through the middle 

 of the town, and is sometimes overflowed by it. The water issues with great 

 force from the bottom of this spring, rising in a considerable body to the height 

 of () feet perpendicular; and would force itself much higher, if it were confined 

 within a narrower compass. This spring is so impetuous, that they are obliged 

 to pave and ram the bed of the river, lest it should force itself up in the chan- 

 nel : and Dr. M. observed one place on the river side, where it had burst through 

 the rock ; and they had been obliged to confine it, by fastening down a large 

 stone on the orifice. The water is so hot, that you cannot bear your hand in 

 it ; and the inhabitants make use of it for scalding their pigs and their poultry. 



The water, when put into a glass, has a bluish cast, not unlike that of an 

 opal ; and though Dr. M. could not discover, that in 24 hours it had deposited 

 the least sediment, yet there was a thin whitish scum collected on the surface ; 

 and he observed the same in the baths, where it was much thicker ; and was of 

 the colour, and almost of the consistence of a wafer. It has a salt taste when 

 first taken from the water, and is used by the inhabitants for cleaning of teeth 

 and scouring silver: it is called Baden Flaum. 



Though this water does not deposit any sediment, yet it is remarkable for the 

 speedy and strong incrustation of all bodies which are put into it. Little plaster 

 figures are sold here, on purpose to verify the experiment ; which, though per- 

 fectly white when put into the spring, are in 48 hours entirely covered with a 

 yellowish incrustation. The same effect is observed on the pipes and channels, 

 through which the water is conveyed. If care were not taken to clean them 4 

 or 5 times a year, they would be entirely choaked up ; and in some parts, where 

 it has not been necessary to clean them so often, he had seen them covered with 

 an incrustation 2 inches thick. In surrounding and covering these wooden pipes, 

 they do not change the nature of the wood ; but it is observable, that they add 

 great hardness and solidity to it : so that it is affirmed a piece of deal will last 100 

 years in this water. The head spring is cleared out once in 30 or 40 years, at 

 a very great expence ; at which time they are obliged to break off all the stony 



* Some account of these mineral springs, being an abstract from Dr. Sprengsfeld's treatise, has 

 been inserted in a former vol. of these Trans. See p. bl , of this volume of these Abridgments. 



