Preface. v. 



evidence, and the reputation of the past is maintained in 

 the progress of the present. Centralization has perhaps told 

 more upon the accidental than the essential features of the 

 city and the city life. The healing Springs still yield their 

 Ijeneficent supply, and still attract from far and near the 

 sufferers who find in " health restored " Bath's chief attrac- 

 tion and best right to fame. The "resources of civilization'' 

 here wear a smiling face, and so far from being "exhausted" 

 are extended and applied with every assiduity of enterprise 

 — ^the City of the Sun is still the rendezvous of wealth and 

 fashion, of marriageable youth, of reverend and graceful 

 .age. Undistinguished as a city by the possession of great 

 institutions for the prosecution of Science, Bath welcomes 

 none the less the return of the British Association to her 

 "borders, appreciative of their admirable labours, sympathiz- 

 ing warmly in their patient investigations, and honoured by 

 their acceptance of the hospitality of which it is hoped the 

 •" Handbook " may be a perpetual memorial. 



