and Bath as a Health Resort. 165 



from a glass of the fresh water ; any pungency from a large 

 body of the water is never unpleasant or sulphurous. Water 

 hot from the pump gives a chalybeate impression on the 

 tongue, and a faintly saline taste. On standing in the open 

 air for Stome hours the water becomes somewhat turbid and 

 of a whey colour after the " ochre " is precipitated, but no 

 other substance is deposited in any ascertainable quantity. 

 Gas rises through the water in large clusters of bubbles ; it 

 was discovered by Dr. Priestley (1755) to consist of only 

 ^ of its bulk of carbonic acid gas, and the remainder is 

 almost entirely nitrogen.* 



The temperature of the Bath Waters is their most import- 

 ant phenomenon. Telluric heat is a subject always of 

 intense interest. Writers differ slightly as to the exact heat 

 of our own springs ; but it is quoted by a recent authority 

 as follows : — " The hot bath is 120 degrees, the King's bath 

 is 117 degrees, the Kingston (or Old Roman) bath is 108 

 degrees, and the Cross bath is 104 degrees." The poverty 

 of the British Islands in the supply of thermal water is 

 shown in the fact that the next warmest spring is at Buxton, 

 the temperature of which is only 82 degrees. It is not 

 within the scope of this chapter to discuss the cause of the 

 heat of thermal springs ; and, in truth, the most advanced 

 geological speculations do not afford a perfect solution of 

 the problem. 



The chemical philosophy of the Bath Thermal Waters 

 may be thus described. We may look at them as 



(i) So much water. — The quantity is practically illimita ble 



* In a delightful volume on Greece, originally published in 1840, Bishop 

 Christopher Wordsworth (late of Lincoln) speaks of the hot springs which 

 gave a name to Thermopylas, and which are connected with the history 

 both of Hercules and Leonidas. These springs still flow from the earth, 

 and expand their streams into pools of the clearest blue, as they did in the 

 ages of the demigod and of the king. 



