32 A GEOLOGICAL HISTORY. 



thought at the time, and do still, that the proprie- 

 tors of the concern put an extra quantity of salt in 

 the well, for sometimes the water was salt as brine, 

 while at others it was only brackish. At this 

 "Spa," as it was called by the puffers in the news 

 papers, a large number of people were collected ; 

 all the credulous, the searchers after the marvel- 

 lous, were there, and were true believers in its 

 medicinal effects.* Another swamp lay under 

 that part of the city where Oak Street crosses 

 Oliver — here, it was said, that another of these 

 medicinal springs was discovered, by a negro but 

 a few years ago. 



The next swamp and largest of all, was called 

 " Lispenard's meadows ;" one arm of this swamp 

 began near to, and a little north of, Reade Street, 

 between Church Street, and the range of hills 

 before described, which ran parallel with the Hud- 

 son River. The middle of this swamp, ran through 



* It seems to Hie that there are people who delight in being hum- 

 bugged, or else why run after these second kind of Cotton Mather witch- 

 crafts — Animal Magnetism, Phrenology, the coming of the Millenium 

 in 1843, Mormonism, Homoeopathy, &c, &c, (though this last being in 

 small doses, is not so difficult to swallow,) all these have their firm ad- 

 mirers and believers, as has " the Mermaid," a thing made of a Cod- 

 fish's tail and an Ape's head, and its body stuffed with oakum. It does 

 me some good to think that I foiled them once — viz; at the swamp 

 spring, and that Dr. J. Augustine Smith, in his " Select Discourses," has 

 staggered the phrenologists. 



