are found to be uncombined nitrogen. It is fair to infer that the remarkable effects of these waters, may be referable, in an important degree, to the gaseous impregnation.

The waters of Bath are offered at the elevated temperature of 109°, 114°, and 117°, respectively. They are characterised by a larger calcareous and saline impregnation than those of Buxton; and by containing, moreover, a small but efficient proportion of iron.

The tepid water of Bristol (temperature 74°) is chiefly remarkable for its weakly calcareous and saline character.

The thermal springs of the Continent may be usually referred to the class assigned by their predominating ingredients, the greater medicinal efficacy ascribed to their elevated temperature being kept in view; and the saline, alkaline, sulphureous, and chalybeate characters may be considered to be enhanced, but not otherwise modified, by the elevated temperature. Thus, the mineral waters of Bareges are principally sulphureous, although in some degree calcareous and saline likewise; these medicinal properties being enhanced by the elevated temperatures of the several springs, which are 88°, 100°, and 113°, respectively. The mineral waters of Aix are calcareous and very slightly saline, but are chiefly important from their sulphureous impregnation; the medicinal effect being increased by their elevated temperature, which, although diminished during the rains of the equinox, and during the melting of the snow, is usually 113°. The mineral waters of

Aix la Chapelle, enhanced as their medicinal action may be by the temperature of 144° as they issue from the earth, and retaining the heat of 119° to 120° when collected in the reservoirs, are chiefly valuable from their large impregnation of sulphuretted hydrogen, combined with an important amount of saline, alkaline, and calcareous ingredients. The mineral waters of Carlsbad, important as their elevated temperature should be admitted to be, in adding to the effect of their mineral and gaseous impregnation, must be classed as chiefly valuable from their alkaline characters. The springs of Carlsbad vary in their respective temperature, from 122° to 165°. As is the case in the thermal waters of Buxton, and probably in those of Bath, and many others, Berzelius found free nitrogen in the Carlsbad waters, although in comparatively small proportion. The composition of the Carlsbad waters offers one of the great practical suggestions which has served so much to advance the modern art of prescribing. This great alkaline agent does not owe its wonderful efficacy in certain morbid states to the presence of carbonate of soda or magnesia, or the different salts of lime, but to a combination of these alkaline re-agents; and on the same principle, in the modern practice of medicine, where alkaline effects are required for the relief of morbid action, it is found that more beneficial results may be obtained by a prescription containing the different alkaline re-agents, than by ordering any of the pure or the carbonated alkalies, or alkaline earths, by themselves. It was a

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much older discovery, but evidently founded on the same principle, that purgative medicines usually prove more efficient, and less drastic in their action, when compounded of several different purgative ingredients; and the same principle is found to be capable of most useful extension to the classes of diaphoretic and diuretic medicines, &c.

The saline, calcareous, and slightly chalybeate properties of the mineral waters of Wiesbaden, are much enhanced in medicinal effect by the elevated temperatures at which they are severally offered; varying from 117° to 151°; and the same remark applies to the similar waters of Baden, in Switzerland, (temperature probably little short of 212°),—and to those of Baden-Baden, (temperature 154°).

Their severally elevated temperatures add to the alkaline effects of the mineral waters of Vichi, 113°, Ems, 122°, and Töplitz, 121°; and to the calcareous effects of the mineral waters of Schlangenbad, 86°, Lucca, 129°, &c.

The mineral waters and watering-places of England deserve to be mentioned somewhat more particularly in this work. They may be divided into those which are thermal and those which are cold; the latter being subdivided into saline, chalybeate, and sulphureous.

The principal of the thermal waters of England are divisible into two groups; of which the one arises from fissures in the secondary limestone, or mountain limestone formation, constituting what is called the Peak of Derbyshire; and the other from the oolite formation, which occurs on the borders of

the counties of Gloucester and Somerset. The first of these groups includes Buxton, Bakewell, StonyMiddleton, and Matlock; the second includes Bath, and Clifton or Bristol.

The Peak of Derbyshire, which embraces the first of these groups, consists principally of a mountain limestone formation. This formation is about fourteen miles broad from the south-west to the north-east, and about twenty miles long. It is the southern extremity of a ridge or chain of hills, that extends from Scotland to this part of Derbyshire. The whole of the Peak is considerably elevated above the level of the sea; the highest mountain tops being of an elevation of between two and three thousand feet; Buxton being at an elevation of one thousand feet, and Bakewell, Stony-Middleton, and Matlock, being considerably lower. Through fissures in this formation, the thermal waters of this district make their way to the surface.

Although Buxton is situated at so considerable an elevation, it is well sheltered on all sides by hills and plantations; and the dryness of the atmosphere is secured not only by the elevation, but by the remarkably absorbent character of the mountain limestone. The purity of the air, and the degree to which it is free from miasmatous matters, are proved by the circumstance that endemic or epidemic fever is unknown in the town or its vicinity.

Buxton is indebted for its principal buildings, plantations, walks, and other embellishments, to the taste and liberality of successive Dukes of Devonshire,

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to whose noble family Buxton has chiefly belonged for many centuries.

The thermal waters are used both internally and as baths. Their temperature is invariably 82°; and the supply of water is unaffected by weather or season. They are found to be chiefly useful in cases of rheumatism and gout, and in some dyspeptic and atonic conditions. The word rheumatism is considered to include the various forms of neuralgia, as tic doloureux, sciatica, &c. The baths are spacious, and provided with the proper means of douching any part of the body. There are likewise warm-baths, in which the mineral waters are heated to any higher degree of temperature that may be required.

Matlock is much less important as to the efficacy of its mineral waters. These waters are only at the temperature of 68°; and they contain little of the gaseous impregnation, especially nitrogen, for which the waters of Buxton are so remarkable. Matlock offers all the great advantages of the limestone atmosphere, together with a singularly well sheltered and highly picturesque locality. Indeed the whole of the Peak of Derbyshire, and more particularly its valleys, of which Matlock is one of the most important, is remarkable for its scenic beauties and rocky grandeur. Matlock offers the invalid a mild, wellsheltered valley-residence, with an absorbent soil.

Bakewell is even less noted than the preceding on account of the mineral waters. It is more celebrated for the excellence of the adjacent trout-streams, and for the beauty of the adjoining district.