the rock, occasioned by the fall of a tree; since which event, it has ceased to flow over its brink.
Between the Red spring in the upper village, and the Washington in the south part of the lower village, are situated most of the other mineral springs in which this place abounds. At three of the principal springs, the Hamilton, Monroe and Washington, large and convenient bathing-houses have been erected, which are the constant resort for pleasure as well as health, during the warm season.
The mineral waters, both at Ballston and Saratoga, are supposed to be the product of the same great laboratory, and they all possess nearly the same properties, varying only as to the quantity of the different articles held in solution. They are denominated acidulous saline and acidulous chalybeate. Of the former, are the Congress, (which holds the first rank,) the Hamilton, High Rock, and President, at Saratoga; and of the latter, are the Columbian, Flat Rock, and Washington, at Saratoga, and the Old Spring and United States, at Ballston. The waters contain muriate of soda, hydriodate of soda, carbonate of soda, carbonate of lime, carbonate of magnesia, oxide of iron, and some of them a minute quantity of silica alumina. Large quantities of carbonic acid gas are also contained in the waters, giving to them a sparkling and lively appearance. The Congress, in particular, the moment it is dipped, contains nearly one half more than its bulk of gas; a quantity unprecedented in any natural waters elsewhere discovered.
Doctor Steel, in his geological report of the county of Saratoga, published a few years since, remarks, that ‘the temperature of the water in all these wells is about the same, ranging from forty-eight to fifty-two degrees on Fahrenheit’s scale; and they suffer no sensible alteration from any variation in the temperature of the atmosphere; neither do the variations of the seasons appear to have much effect on the quantity of water produced.
‘The waters are remarkably limpid, and when first dipped sparkle with all the life of good champaigne. The saline waters bear bottling very well, particularly the Congress, immense quantities of which are put up in this way and transported to various parts of the world; not, however, without a considerable loss of its gaseous property, which renders its taste much more insipid than when drank at the well. The chalybeate water is likewise put up in bottles for transportation, but a very trifling loss of its gas produces an immediate precipitation of its iron; and hence this water when it has been bottled for some time, frequently becomes turbid, and finally loses every trace of iron; this substance fixing itself to the walls of the bottle.
‘The most prominent and perceptible effects of these waters, when taken into the stomach, are cathartic, diuretic, and tonic. They are much used in a great variety of complaints; but the diseases in which they are most efficacious, are, jaundice and bilious affections generally, dyspepsia, habitual costiveness, hypochondriacal complaints, depraved appetite, calculous and nephritic complaints, phagedenic or ill-conditioned ulcers, cutaneous eruptions, chronic rheumatism, some species or states of gout, some species of dropsy, scrofula, paralysis, scorbutic affections and old scorbutic ulcers, amenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, and chlorosis. In phthisis, and indeed all other pulmonary affections arising from primary diseases of the lungs, the waters are manifestly injurious, and evidently tend to increase the violence of the disease.
‘Much interest has been excited on the subject of the source of these singular waters; but no researches have as yet unfolded the mystery. The large proportion of common salt found among their constituent properties, may be accounted for without much difficulty; all the salt springs of Europe, as well as those of America, being found in geological situations exactly corresponding to these. But the production of the unexampled quantity of carbonic acid gas, the medium through which the other articles are held in solution, is yet, and probably will remain, a subject of mere speculation. The low and regular temperature of the water seems to forbid the idea, that it is the effect of subterranean heat, as many have supposed, and the total absence of any mineral acid, excepting the muriatic, which is combined with soda, does away the possibility of its being the effect of any combination of that kind. Its production is therefore truly unaccountable.’23
At Albany, in the summer of 1826, in boring for pure water for a brewery, a mineral spring was accidentally opened. The sensible qualities of this water have a great resemblance to those of the Congress Spring at Saratoga, but those who are acquainted with it, think it by no means so stimulating. Its temperature is uniformly from fifty-one to fifty-two degrees of Fahrenheit, at all seasons of the year; its specific gravity, when taken with great care, and after repeated trials, was found to be as one thousand and ten to one thousand. The taste of the water is purely saline, somewhat pungent, and not at all disagreeable; it has no sensible chalybeate taste, and no perceptible smell, which could lead to the suspicion of its holding sulphuretted hydrogen gas in solution.
New Lebanon Spring is situated in Columbia county, New-York about twenty-four miles south-east of Albany. It is a very remarkable fountain, issuing from a high hill. The water boils up in a space of ten feet wide by three and a half deep, and is so perfectly clear that the smallest objects may be seen at the bottom of the spring. Much gas issues from the pebbles and sand, and keeps the water in constant and pleasing agitation. The fountain is very copious, and more than eighteen barrels of water are discharged in a minute. This supply is not only sufficient to furnish the baths abundantly, but turns the wheels of several mills. The quantity of water does not perceptibly vary at any season; its temperature is uniformly seventy-three degrees of Fahrenheit. The water is without taste or odor, is very soft, is used for all culinary and domestic purposes, and differs but little from pure mountain water, except in its remarkable temperature. It is found very useful in salt rheums, and other cutaneous affections; it augments the appetite, and sometimes acts as a cathartic. For those who wish to enjoy fine rural scenery, bold, picturesque, and beautiful, and such advantages to health as this copious fountain presents, nothing can be better in its kind than New Lebanon.
The Bedford Springs rise near a romantic and frequented village of that name, situated among the mountains in the southern part of Pennsylvania. They rise from a limestone rock at the base of a hill. The water is pleasant and cold, and without any perceptible odor; the iron, lime, and magnesia, with which it is impregnated, render it useful in chronic and cutaneous disorders. Mineral springs abound among the mountains in the central parts of Virginia. The Yellow Springs, near the falls of the Little Miami, in Ohio, are esteemed for their medicinal properties; the water is a strong chalybeate. The country about them possesses much attraction in point of scenery, and is unusually salubrious.
Florida is remarkable for the large number of its springs; a substratum of soft and cavernous stone appearing to extend over the whole country, admitting the courses of subterraneous brooks, which burst out at frequent intervals in the form of springs. The most remarkable of these is the fountain of Walkulla river, twelve miles from Tallahassee. It is so large as to be navigable by boats directly below its sources. About a mile from its head-waters the channel becomes choked with weeds, but suddenly breaks on our view in the shape of a circular lake, that has been sounded with a line of two hundred and fifty fathoms. It is clear as crystal, and has the cerulean tinge which mark the waters of the gulf. This hue is attributed to the presence of the sulphuret of lime.
‘To a person placed in a skiff,’ says Mr. Flint, ‘in the centre of this splendid fountain basin, the appearance of the mild azure vault above, and the transparent depth below, on which the floating clouds and the blue concave above are painted, and repeated with an indescribable softness, create a kind of pleasing dizziness, and a novel train of sensations, among which the most distinguishable is a feeling, as if suspended between two firmaments. The impression only ceases, when the boat approaches the edge of the basin near enough to enable you to perceive the outlines of the neighboring trees pictured on the margin of the basin. It has been asserted, that limestone water, in its utmost purity, has less refractive powers for light, than freestone water. The water of this vast spring, even in this sultry climate, has a coldness almost like ice-water. The water, probably from the pressure of the sulphuret of lime, is slightly nauseous to the taste. Beautiful hammock lands rise from the northern acclivity of this basin. It was the site of the English factory
