ADDRESS. Ixi 



On the slopes and summits of the picturesque hills in the neighbourhood 

 rose many a Koman villa, to trace the boundaries of which, and to bring to 

 light the treasures of art concealed in them, are tasks which have of late years 

 amply rewarded the researches of Mr. Scarth and other learned antiquaries. 

 No wonder that on this favoured spot we should meet with so many memo- 

 rials of former greatness, when we reflect on the length of time during which 

 the imperial troops and rich colonists of a highly civilized people sojourned 

 here, having held undisturbed possession of the coimtry for as many years as 

 have elapsed from the first discovery of America to our own times. 



One of our former Presidents, Dr. Daubeny, has remarked that nearly aU 

 the most celebrated hot springs of Europe, such as those of Aix-la-Chapelle, 

 Baden-Baden, Naples, Auvergne, and the Pyrenees, have not declined in 

 temperature since the days of the Romans; for many of them stUl retain as 

 great a heat as is tolerable to the human body, and yet when employed by the 

 ancients they do not seem to have required to be first cooled down by arti- 

 ficial means. This uniformity of temperature, maintained in some places for 

 more than 2000 years, together with the constancy in the volume of the 

 water, which never varies with the seasons, as in ordinary springs, the 

 identity also of the mineral ingredients which, century after century, are held 

 by each spring in solution, are striking facts, and they tempt us irresistibly 

 to speculate on the deep subterranean sources both of the heat and mineral 

 matter. How long has this uniformity prevailed? Are the springs really 

 ancient in reference to the earth's history, or, like the course of the present 

 rivers and the actual shape of our hiUs and valleys, are they only of high 

 antiquity when contrasted with the brief space of human annals ? May they 

 not be like Vesuvius and Etna, which, although Ihey have been adding to 

 their flanks, in the course of the last 2000 years many a stream of lava and 

 shower of ashes, were still mountains very much the same as they now are 

 in height and dimensions from the earliest times to which we can trace back 

 their existence ? Yet although their foundations are tens of thousands of 

 years old, they were laid at an era when the Mediterranean was already 

 inhabited by the same species of marine shells as those with which it is now 

 peopled ; so that these volcanos must be regarded as things of yesterday in 

 the geological calendar. 



Notwithstanding the general persistency in character of mineral waters 

 and hot springs ever since they were first known to us, we find on inquiry 

 that some few of them, even in historical times, have been subject to great 

 changes. These have happened during earthquakes which have been violent 

 enough to disturb the subterranean drainage and alter the shape of the 

 fissures up which the waters ascend. Thus during the great earthquake at 

 Lisbon in 1755, the temperature of the spring called La Source de la Eeine 

 at Bagneres de Luchon, in the Pyrenees, was suddenly raised as much as 

 75° F., or changed from a cold spring to one of 122° F., a heat which it has 

 since retained. It is also recorded that the hot springs at Bagneres de 

 Bigorre, in the same mountain-chain, became suddenly cold during a great 

 earthquake which, in 1660, threw down several houses in that town. 



It has been ascertained that the hot springs of the Pyrenees, the Alps, and 

 many other regions are situated in lines along which the rocks have been 

 rent, and usually where they have been displaced or "faulted." Similar 

 dislocations in the solid crust of the earth are generally supposed to have 

 determined the spots where active and extinct volcanos have burst forth ; for 

 several of these often affect a linear arrangement, their position seeming to 

 have been determined by great lines of fissure. Another connecting link 



