B A 
part was poflefled by a large bafon that received water by 
feveral pipes, and was furrounded by a baludrade, behind 
which there was an area for the reception of thofe who 
waited to nfe the bath. They were vaulted over, and only 
received light from the top. 
In the Roman baths, the firft part that appeared was a 
large bafon, called xoAv//£-/) 9 |ai, in Greek, and natatio or 
pifcina in Latin. In the middle was the hypocaujtum, which 
had a row of four apartments on each fide, called balnearia : 
thefe were the dove, the bath, cold bath, and tepidarium. 
The two doves, called laconicum and tepidarium, were circu¬ 
lar and joined together. Their floor was hollow and fuf- 
pended, in order to receive the heat of a large furnace, which 
was communicated to the doves through the interpoling va¬ 
cuities. This furnace alfo heated another room called vafa- 
rium, in which were three large brazen velfols called milliaria, 
refpectively containing hot, warm, and cold, water; which 
were fo difpofed, that the water might be made to pafs by 
fyphons and pipes out of one or other of them into the 
bath, in order to adjud its temperature. The defcription 
is given by Vitruvius. At three in the afternoon, which 
is what Pliny calls kora oBava et nona, the Romans all re¬ 
paired to the baths, either the public or the private ones: 
this was called the bath hour, kora balnei, which in winter 
was at nine, in fummer at eight. The public baths were 
all opened by the found of a bell, and always at the fame 
hour ; and thofe who came too late, of courfe dood the 
chance of bathing with little advantage or comfort to them- 
felves. They began with hot water ; after which, as the 
pores were opened, and might caufe too plentiful a per- 
fpiration, they thought it necelfary for health to clofe 
them again, either with tiie cold bath, or at lead with a 
fprinkling of cold water. During the bath, the body was 
fcraped with a kind of knives, or fmall drigils, fitch as 
are dill found in the cabinets of the curious. After bath¬ 
ing fucceeded million and perfuming, from which they 
went fredt to fupper. The Romans, when they found 
their domachs overcharged with meat, went to the bath, 
as we learn from Juvenal, who inveighs againd thofe who, 
having gorged themfelves with eating, were forced to go 
into the baths, to give themfelves relief. They found alfo 
that a bath was good to refredt themfelves after any con- 
flderable fatigue or trouble, as Celfus tells us; which 
makes Plautus fay, that all the baths in this world were 
not diffident to remove the wearinefs he felt. After Pom- 
pey’s time the humour of bathing was carried to fo great 
an excels, that many were debilitated, and feveral brought 
themfelves to fuch a pitch, that they could not bear food 
without bathing fird. The emperor Titus is faid to have 
lod his life by this. Hence it is that Pliny inveighs le- 
verely againd thofe phydcians who held, that hot baths 
digeded the food. The emperor Adrian lird laid a re- 
draint on the immoderate paflion for bathing, by a public 
edilt, forbidding all perfons to bathe before the eighth hour. 
Baths of Agrippa (thermae Agrippina) were built of 
brick, but painted in enamel: thofe of Nero, thermce Ne- 
roniana, were not only furnilhed with freflt water, but 
even had the fea brought into them : thofe of Caracalla 
were adorned with 200 marble columns, and furnilhed 
with 1600 feats of the fame matter. Lipfius allures us 
they were fo large, that 1800 perfons might (onveniently 
bathe in them at the fame time. But the baths of Dio¬ 
cletian, thermce Dioclefiance, furpafled all the red in magni¬ 
ficence. One hundred and forty thoufand men were em¬ 
ployed many years in building them. Great part of thefe, 
as well as thofe of Caracalla, are dill danding ; and with 
the vafl high arches, the beautiful and dately pillars, the 
extraordinary plenty of foreign marble, the curious vault¬ 
ing of the roofs, the prodigious number of fpacious apart¬ 
ments, and a thoufand other ornaments, conllitute one of 
the greated curiofities of modern Rome. 
Bath, in chemidry, a method whereby heat is tranf- 
mitted to various bodies under chemical inveftigation. The 
keat communicated from bodies in combudion, mud ne- 
ceflarily vary according to circumdances; and this v»ria- 
1 n. 799 
tion not only influences the refults of operations, but in 
many indanccs endangers the veflels, especially if they 
be made of glafs. Among the feveral methods of obvia¬ 
ting this inconvenience, ot. Sof the mod itfual conflfls in 
interpoling a quantity of land, or other matter, between 
the fire and the veflel intended to be heated. The fand- 
bath and the water-bath are mod commonly tiled ; the lat¬ 
ter of which is called balneum maria by the elder chemilts. 
A bath of deam may in fome indances be found prefera¬ 
ble to the water-bath. Somechemids have propofed baths 
of melted lead, of tin, and of other fufible fubflances. 
Thefe may perhaps be found advantageous in a few pecu¬ 
liar operations, in which the intelligent practitioner mud 
be left to his own fagacity. The water-balk is nothing 
more than a pot or velfel containing water, which is kept, 
boiling, and in which the digeding or didillatory veirels 
are kept immerfed. As the heat of boiling water is near¬ 
ly dationary, this temperature is found very advantageous 
in the dillillation of eirential oils, and all other fubdances 
in which an empyreumatic taint is to be feared. It may 
ealily be imagined that the form of the bath, as well as of 
the veflels, may be varied according to the purpofes re- 
fpeltively aimed at. The fand-bath canlids of fluid placed 
either in an iron pot, or upon an iron hearth, with fire un¬ 
derneath. In this the heat is gradually communicated, 
although lefs uniformly than by the water-bath ; and it 
may likewife be carried to ignition. As the heat is great¬ 
ed towards the bottom of the fand, the operator poflefTes 
a power of moderating it by raifing the velfel when ne- 
celfary. The extenlive fand-bath which is formed by 
fpreading fand upon an iron-hearth, is very ufeful for di- 
geftion, folution, evaporation, and other chemical purpo¬ 
fes, which may be carried on at the fame time in a confi- 
derable number of veflels. 
Bath, in metallurgy, is ufed to fignify the fufion of 
metallic matter in certain operations. In refining or cu¬ 
pelling, for example, the metals are faid to be in bath 
when they are melted. When gold is purified by antimo¬ 
ny, this femi-metal melted is called by fome the bath of 
gold-, alchemids, wdio conlidered gold as the king of me¬ 
tals, called antimony the balk of the king only ; becaufe in 
fall gold only can refid the altion of antimony. 
BATH. [All the different names that this city has borne 
in different ages and languages have been taken from its 
medicinal waters : as the tHoerce. or ‘hot waters,’ of 
Ptolemy ; the Aqucc Solis, or ‘waters of the fun,’ of An¬ 
toninus ; the Caer Baden, and Caer Ennant, i. e. ‘the city 
of baths, and ‘ the city of ointment,’ of the Britons; and 
xheAckmanckefer, or ‘the city of valetudinarians,’ of the 
Saxons.] A celebrated city in the county of Somerfet, fi- 
tuated in a deep narrow' valley, bounded on the north, 
fouth, and fouth-wed, by lofty hills, forming a very plea- 
flint natural amphitheatre, and affording the city a double 
advantage, a barrier againd the winds, and fountains of 
the pured waters. Thefe hills abound with white free- 
done, of which the houfes are built. On the north-wed 
fide the valley widens, divided into rich meadows, water¬ 
ed by the river Avon. There are three principal fprings, 
or baths; the King’s Bath, the Hot Bath, and the Crofs 
Bath. The Queen’s Bath is merely an.expanfion of the 
waters of the King’s Bath. The difeovery of thefe wa¬ 
ters is, by ancient hidorians, attributed to Bladud, fon of 
Lud-Hudibras, who was king of this county 890 years 
before the birth of Chrid; but the antiquity of the city 
and the baths themfelves vve are not to refer to any higher 
period than the arrival of the Romans, a period peculiarly 
happy in converting the gifts of nature to the propered 
ufes, and in lupplying her deficiencies by admirable works 
of art. It was in the year of our Lord 44, and in the 
reign of the emperor Claudius, that the Roman forces, 
under the conduit of Flavius Vefpafian, after having re¬ 
duced all the Belgic colonies and the wedern parts of Bri¬ 
tain under the fubjeClion of the Roman empire, fat dow n 
in this territory, to which they had probably been direct¬ 
ed by the native Belgte. The report of fuch genial wn- 
