Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/52

36 Springs. They are still less known. Having been found to relieve cases in which the others had been ineffectually tried, it is probable their composition is different. They are different also in their temperature, being as cold as common water, which is not mentioned however as a proof of a distinct impregnation. This is among the first sources of James River.

On Patowmac River, in Berkeley county, above the North Mountain, are Medicinal Springs, much more frequented than those of Augusta. Their powers, however, are less, the waters weakly mineralized, and scarcely warm. They are more visited, because situated in a fertile, plentiful, and populous country, better provided with accommodations, always safe from the Indians, and nearest to the more populous States.

In Louisa county, on the head waters of the South Anna branch of York River, are springs of some medicinal virtue. They are not much used however. There is a weak chalybeate at Richmond, and many others in various parts of the country, which are of too little worth, or too little note, to be enumerated after those before mentioned.

We are told of a Sulphur Spring on Howard's Creek of Greenbriar, and another at Boonsborough, on Kentuckey.

In the low grounds of the Great Kanhaway, 7 miles above the mouth of Elk River, and 67 above that of the Kanhaway itself, is a hole in the earth of the capacity of 30 or 40 gallons, from which issues constantly a gaseous stream so strong as to give to the sand about its orifice the motion which it has in a boiling spring. On presenting a lighted candle or torch within 18 inches of the hole, it flames up in a column of 18 inches diameter, and four or five feet height, which sometimes burns out within 20 minutes, and at other times has been known to continue three days, and then has been left still burning. The flame is unsteady, of the density of that of burning spirits, and smells like burning pit coal. Water sometimes collects in the bason, which is remarkably cold, and is kept in ebullition by the gas escaping through it. If the gas