and bushes. Its perpendicular height cannot be
estimated at less than 200 feet, although many make it double that, or
even more. The country of the Valais is remarkable for the vast numbers
of persons it contains, affected with the _goitres_ and also of
_idiots_. The neighbouring provinces are also more or less affected with
these maladies.

Many writers have exerted their ingenuity in endeavouring to account for
this singularity with greater or less success; but what at Geneva is
considered as the best treatise on the subject, is that by _Coxe_ in his
_Account of Switzerland_. A gentleman there lent me a French edition of
this valuable work, from which I extracted the following account of the
origin of the _Goitres_, (or extraordinary swellings about the glands
of the throat,) which in Switzerland is considered as very satisfactory.
Mr. Coxe says,

"The opinion that water derived from the melting of snow, occasions
these excrescences, is entirely destitute of foundation, which one
cannot doubt if it is considered how generally such water is used
in many parts of Switzerland, where the inhabitants are not at all
subject to this malady, which is, however, very prevalent in parts
where no such water abounds.

"These swellings are also frequently seen near Naples, in Sumatra,
&c. where there is little or no snow."

Mr. C. proceeds to shew that this malady is occasioned by a calcareous
matter called in Swiss _Tuf_; and adds, "This stone resembles very much
the incrustations at Mallock in Derbyshire, which dissolve so completely
in the water as not to lessen its transparency; and I think that the
particles of this substance so dissolved, resting in the glands of the
throat, occasion the Goitres, and during the course of my travels in
different parts of Europe, I have never failed to observe, that where
this _Tuf_, or calcareous deposit is common, _Goitres_ are equally so. I
have found an abundance of tuf, and also of goitrous persons in
Derbyshire, the Valois, the Valteline, at Lucerne, Berne, Fribourg, in
parts of Piedmont, in the valleys of Savoy, at Milan, and at Dresden. I
also observed that at Berne and Fribourg, the public fountains are
supplied from sources where there is a vast quantity of this calcareous
deposit. General Pfiffer has informed me, that there is but one spring
at Lucerne, which is free from tuf, and that those who reside in its
vicinity, are much less subj