32 



known. Dunning's lick is also as yet untried, but it is 

 supposed to be the best on tliis side the Ohio. The 

 salt springs on the rnaririn of the Onondago lake are 

 said to give a saline taste to the waters of the lake. 



There are several medicinal springs, some of which 

 are indubitably efficacious, ivliile others seem to owe 

 their reputation as much to fancy and change of air 

 and regimen, as to their real virtues. None of them 

 having undergone a chemical analysis in skilful hands, 

 nor been so far the subject of observations as to have 

 produced a reduction into classes of the disorders 

 which they relieve ; it is in my power to give little more 

 than an enumeration of them. 



The most efficacious of these are two springs in Au- 

 gusta, near the first sources of James river, where it is 

 called Jackson's river. They rise near the foot of the 

 ridge of mountains, generally c;dled the Warm spring 

 mountains, but in the maps Jackson's mountains. The 

 one is distinguished by the name of the Warm spring, 

 and the other of the Hot s{)ring. The warm spring is- 

 sues with a very bold stream sufficient to work a grist 

 mill, and to keep the waters of its basin, which is 30 

 feet in diameter, at the vita! warmth, viz. 96"^ of Fahren-^ 

 lieit's thermometer. The matter with which these 

 waters is allied is very volatile ; its stneli indicates it tO' 

 be sulphureous, as also rloes the circumstance of its 

 turning silver black. They relieve rheumatisms. Oth- 

 er coujplaints also of very different natures have been 

 removed or lessened by them. It rains here four or 

 five days in every week. 



The Hot spnna^ is about six miles from the Warm, is 

 much smaller, and has been so hot as to have boiled an 

 egg. Some believe its degree of heat to he lessened. 

 It raises the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer to 

 112 degrees, which is fever heat. It sometimes re- 

 lieves where the W^ii-m spring fails. A fountain of 

 common water, issuing v/ithiii a few inches of its mar- 

 gin gives it a singular appearance. Comparing the 

 temperature of these with that of the Hot springs of 

 Kamschatka, of which Krachininnikow gives an ac- 



