Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/525

Rh Of course, persons who have traveled for the sake of their health will know the springs of the Pyrenees and of Auvergne, and will have heard of those of Central France and of the Vosges. A brief description of the leading springs in this latter group may have a practical interest for some of my readers; and at least the interest of curiosity for those to whom these healing waters are but the shadow of a name.

—These springs are of very ancient fame, though they have become popular only of recent years. They have been known and used since the Roman time, and in the masonry around the deepest spring you are shown mason-work which dates back to the earliest Christian centuries. In 1859 a bronze water-cock and its key, of the Roman time, were unearthed in fairly good order; on turning the key, the water rushed out in a full stream. The masonry of the sub-works is probably older than this; and it is probable that bathers were disporting themselves in these vapor-chambers, now far below the level of the ground, at least two thousand years ago.

A reminder of the ancient liberty of the latter survived, until very recently, at Plombières, in the custom of men and women bathing together; this was practiced so lately as 1881, of course under suitable restrictions as to decorum. A sufficient marble partition in the baths separated the men from the women, and strict regulations as to bathing-dresses were in force. But the bathers were numerous, and the baths were greatly crowded. In one of the bathing-rooms I was shown four marble bathing-tanks—piscines they call them—each a circle of about ten feet in diameter, with a dozen single bath-tubs standing near by; and in these rather narrow receptacles no less than a hundred men and women sometimes bathed at a time. Naturally, they complained of the situation. Rules and bathing-dresses are very well, but such propinquity has its inconveniences in spite of rules and bathing-dresses; and it was finally found desirable to allot separate hours for bathing to the two "sects" (in Georgia phrase) of bathers. The only other place in Eastern France where men and women bathe together is at Vittel; but at these charming baths, which we shall study a little later, the crowd is not too great, and people can discuss evolution, or the dual nature of the soul, across the marble fender which separates the tanks, with the most perfect sang-froid, especially in the cooler baths. The absolute leisure and unoccupation of the bath, the unconventionality of the costumes, and the interest felt in meeting strangers under such peculiar circumstances, all invite to the consolations of talk; and many a pleasant acquaintance has had its beginning in the tanks of Plombières or Vittel, which lend themselves, as the phrase is, most genially to the humaner sympathies. It is no small consolation to some invalids to compare notes respecting their progress; and it must be remembered that the majority of those who frequent the baths at Plombières are actual invalids. As to any improprieties under the old system of bathing together, I can not testify: the worst that I