over
and appreciate those extraordinary assemblages of creative perfections,
and wonders, with which the all bountiful hand of the Supreme Creator
has most amply stored every portion of the material Universe.

SPAS OF FRANCE.

A small work of this description will not admit of our entering into a
minute detail of all the mineral waters of France; we shall therefore
merely give a sketch of their physical characters, medicinal properties,
and of the different localities where they are found, to serve as a
superficial guide to Invalids; and conclude by giving a more general
description of the _Spas of Central France_.

Mineral waters may be arranged into the four following classes;
_Saline_; _Acidulous_; _Chalybeate_; and _Sulphureous_.

_Saline._ These waters owe their properties altogether to saline
compounds. Those which predominate and give their character to the
waters of this class are either,

1. Salts, the basis of which is Lime.

2. Muriate of Soda and Magnesia.

3. Sulphate of Magnesia.

4. Alkaline Carbonates, particularly Carbonate of Soda.

They are mostly purgative, the powers of the salts they contain being
very much increased by the large proportion of water in which they are
exhibited.

There are but few _Cold Saline Springs_ in France, viz: those of Andabre
or Camares in the department of Aveyron; Jouhe, dep: Jura; Pouillon,
dep: Landes; Niederbronn, dep: Lower Rhine. They are employed in
diseases which require continued and moderate intestinal evacuations;
such as dyspepsia hypochondriasis, chronic hepatitis, jaundice and
strumous swellings. They are more grateful to the stomach when carbonic
acid gas is also present; and when they contain Iron as in the springs
of Camares, their tonic powers combined with their purgative qualities,
render them still more useful in dyspeptic complaints and amenorrhoea.

To this class the water of the Ocean belongs. The quantity of saline
matter _Sea Water_ contains varies in different latitudes thus, between
10 deg. and 20 deg. it is rather more than 1/24; at the equator it is 1/25; and
at 57 deg. north it is only 1/27. The saline ingredients in 10,000 parts of
sea water according to the last analysis of Dr. Murray, are, muriate of
Soda 220.01; muriate of lime, 7.84; muriate of Magnesia, 42.08; and
Sulphate of Soda 33.16. When brought up from a great depth, its taste is
purely saline; but when taken from the surface it is disagreeably
bitter, owing,