32 NATURAL HISTORY 
by that quality only ; the cold by bracing up the nerves and mufcles, 
and ftrengthening the glands, promotes fecretion and circulation, 
the two great minifters of health. In the northern kingdoms they 
are fo fenfible that all extraordinary defluxions of humours are owing 
to too great a relaxation of the parts, that they keep carefully the 
water of fnow gathered in March, and apply it as a general remedy 
for moft difeafes : but the common people (of this as well as other 
countries) will not be contented to attribute the benefit they receive to 
ordinary means ; there muft be fomething marvellous in all their 
cures. I happened luckily to be at this Well upon the laffc day of 
the year on which (according to the vulgar opinion) it exerts its 
principal and moft falutary powers : two women were here who 
came from a neighbouring parifli, and were bufily employed in bath- 
ing a child : they both aflured me, that people who had a mind to 
receive any benefit from St. Euny’s Well, muft come and wafh upon 
the three firft Wednefdays in May. But to leave folly to its own 
delufion, it is certainly very gracious in Providence to diftribute a 
remedy for fo many disorders in a quality fo univerfally found as cold 
is in every unmixed Well-water. 
Holy Well. Another Well of this plain kind, and of no little refort, is 
that called Holywell, about a mile and half to the North Weft of 
St. Cuthbert’s Church, in a fmall fandy bay where there are feveral 
caves wrought into the cliff by the northern lea. In one of thele 
caves, at the north-eaftern point of the bay, at the foot of a high 
cliff is this Well. The entrance is low, but by the help of fome 
fteps cut into the rock, you afeend about fifteen feet perpendicular, 
where the water which diftils from every part of the roof, is col- 
lected into a little bafon, from whence proceeds a fmall rill about 
the bignefs of a reed. As the Water percolates through the in- 
terftices of clay and ftone, it brings down with it fome of the finer 
parts of both, which form into feams and ridges correfpondent to 
the fiffures through which they proceed ; fome fhort mammillary 
ftalactites hang from the roof ; the floor of the rock, on which you 
tread, is covered with the fame fubftance, and as the rock is 
fhelving, the incruftations are fo many wavy procefles covering the 
unevennefs of the rock. I mention thefe particulars the rather 
becaufe fuch productions of the alabaftcr kind are extreamly fcarce 
in Cornwall, and I have yet feen none worth notice but here. The 
water is much commended in fluxes, and diforder’d bowels. Upon 
trying this water, I found that with green tea it altered not it’s 
colour ; with milk it curdled not; fo that it has neither fteel 
nor alum in it’s compofition. I evaporated it to one half, no 
pellicle appeared, nor any cryftallized (hoots on it’s cooling; fo 
that it has no acid falts ; but it depofited a final! fediment of the 
fame 
