OF THE GASES OF THE KING'S BATH SPRING. 5 



Justinian* as discharging a hot bubbling fluid -f-, which (as may be gathered from 

 another passage of the same poem|,) appeared to boil up, owing to the escape of 

 bubbles of sulphuretted hydrogen, are still found to be impregnated with this same 

 gaseous ingredient §. 



To return to the case of the Bath waters, there is no evidence, that it has at any 

 time been the practice to cool them down artificially, before they were employed for 

 bathing ; and hence it seems fair to conclude, that they never, since the earliest period 

 at which they have been known, were hotter than they are now, their present tempe- 

 rature probably approaching the highest point which the human body can sustain 

 without inconvenience. From the permanency of the temperature, therefore, we may 

 be led to presume that of the other properties which at present characterize the 

 spring. 



It may also be alleged, that geology supplies us with examples of hot springs, of 

 many distinct epochs ; some, like that of Castellamare near Naples, connected with 

 the volcano there existing ; others, like that of Mount Dor in Auvergne, with volcanos 

 long extinct, but which yet are not more remote than the tertiary period at farthest ; 

 whilst a third class, like those of Bath and Buxton, probably are of a much greater 

 antiquity. Yet in all these cases the same evolution of nitrogen is observed ; so that 

 we are not at liberty to consider this, as a phenomenon resulting from any one parti- 

 cular period in the existence of a mineral spring, but as one continuing in it from first 

 to last, or at least during a space of time of very extended duration. 



Perhaps we shall best explain this regular and long-continued evolution of elastic 

 fluid from the bowels of the earth, by supposing a large amount of these gases to be 

 pent up in some cavern existing in a rock, which is seated at a great depth below the 

 surface, and which had been heated at some former period by volcanic action. 



If such a mass of rock were of considerable dimensions, and consisted of materials 

 which slowly transmitted heat, we might suppose its external portions to cool far 

 more rapidly than the internal ones ; in which case, the former contracting upon the 



* Paulus Silentiarius (viz. Silence-keeper' in the imperial palace at Constantinople). See Bkunck's Ana- 

 lecta, vol. iii. p. 94, a poem entitled eis ra ev JVvQiois depfia. 



■f ovTU) TrpoTfXde Trdari 



TO OepnofiXvarov peldpov, 

 ' liriroKpaTr]! d-\pvxos, 

 re\yr}S drev TaXrjPos, 

 " 'T was thus the hot bubbling fluid issued for the benefit of mankind, an inanimate Hippocrates, a Galen 

 untaught by art." 



X Thus he supports his theory as to the cause of this and other thermal waters, by alleging the mephitic 

 offensive stench which accompanies them : 



dZfxr} yap eariy, vicas, 

 /xv^wffa, ^vaTTvoovffa, 

 rpavov re jxaprvpovaa. 

 § See, in Walpole's Memoirs on Greece and Turkey, a notice of these springs by the traveller Browne. 



