Page:Essay on the mineral waters of Carlsbad (1835).pdf/48

 knot has neither been untied nor cut through. Those researches have in some respects promoted science, without however teaching us where the subterraneous laboratory lays, in which the Almighty prepares the mineral ingredients of our waters; out of what store-house he draws them; how he mixes and heats them; nor by what ramification of channels he leads them, in mercy to mankind, to the various orifices, where a sickly multitude flocks annually, to partake of the blessing. “Should we not believe,” said Galen, speaking of thermal waters, above two thousand years ago, “that Vulcan and all the Cyclops of his retinue, are incessantly blowing and stirring up the fire of their subterraneous furnaces, to maintain a temperature so equal and so constant?”

I have only named here learned men who have attempted to explain the heat of our waters; french, italian and german men of science have paid equal attention to the phenomenon, but with as little success, in their respective countries.