NORTH AMERICA. 
14$ 
“ %Jr 
moo tli 3 it is about thirty miles over land from this 
farm. 
My friend rode with me, about four miles di fiance 
from the’houfe, to fhow me a vaft fountain of warm,- 
or rather hot mineral water, which iifued from a 
high ridge or bank on the river, in a great cove or 
bay, a few miles above the mouth of the creek 
which I afcended to the lake ; it boils up with great 
force, forming immediately a vaft circular bafon, ca- 
pacious enough for feveral ihallqps to ride in, and 
runs with rapidity into the river three or four hun- 
dred yards diftance. This creek,- which is formed 
inftantly by this admirable fountain, is wide and 
deep enough for a {loop to fail up into the bafon. 
The water is perfectly diaphanous, and here are 
Continually a. prodigious number and variety of Mi * 
they appear as plain as though lying on a table be- 
fore your eyes, although many feet deep in the wa- 
ter. This tepid water has a moil difagreeable tafte* 
brafTy and vitriolic, and very offenfive to the fmell, 
much like bilge-water, or the walkings of a gun-bar- 
rel, and is fmelt at a great diftance. A pale bluifla 
-or pearl coloured coagulum covers every inanimate 
fubftance that lies in the water, as logs, limbs of 
trees, Ac. Alligators and gar were numerous in the 
■bafon, even at the apertures where the ebullition 
emerges through the rocks 3 as alfo many other tribes 
of Bfh. In the winter feafon feveral kinds of fiffr 
and aquatic animals migrate to thefe warm foun- 
tains. T he forbidding tafte and fmell of thefe waters 
feems to be owing to vitriolic and fulphureous fumes 
or vapours 3 and thefe being condenfed, form this 
coagulum, which reprefents flakes of pearly clouds 
in the clear cerulean waters in the bafon. A charm- 
ing grange grove^ with magnolias; oak.s ; and palms. 
