Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/584

566 ancient springs now subsided. At one time each of these cones was but the mere rim or lip of a basin in which the hot water bubbled as we see it at the top of the cascade. Thus the water continued to boil upward in jets, like the geysers, for centuries, gradually, by the deposit of lime which fell from it, raising its lip. At length the subterranean force that impelled it vertically weakened. The cone had attained its full stature. According to the Arabs, however, the cones arc deaf, dumb, and blind genii in whose charge Solomon put the baths when he is supposed to have created them for all the world. The worthy guardians, who still think King Solomon is alive, continue to keep the baths warm as they did at the first for the use of the king's subjects. It is supposed to be a matter of great difficulty to announce to these genii the fact that their master is dead. The inference is, therefore, that they will continue to warm the baths to the end of time. Various other stories are told to account for the origin of the baths.

Lepers in the Middle Ages.—Leprosy was common in England and continental Europe some five hundred years ago, and those who were afflicted with it were subjected to treatment which would now be considered cruel. Institutions for the segregation and treatment of the diseased, erected by the Church or by the aid of pious donors, were to be found over all England; and at one time there was a leper hospital or village near every town. According to Prof. Simpson, there were in the year 1226 two thousand lazar-houses in the small kingdom of France. "In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries," says an English writer, "a leper was not allowed to hold property, was deemed incapable of making a will, and lost all the privileges of citizenship. He was hunted from the towns and driven from the dwellings of men; he was forbidden to drink from the running stream, lest he should defile it, and it was unlawful for him to touch things that were used for food by man. Anything was deemed good enough for the leper." When a man was supposed to have leprosy, he was examined, and, if the disease was found upon him, was banished from society, after enduring a service at the church resembling the funeral ritual, and sometimes embodying a part of it. If a man was wealthy, he might buy himself an exemption from the extreme disabilities, as did the abbot Richard de Wallingford, who was able, with great difficulty, to keep his position. The hospitals maintained by the Church did much to alleviate the woes of lepers. The regulations of the Hospital of St. Julian, which were drawn up in 1344, have been preserved. Though strict, they were not hard. Among them was an exhortation to avoid slander and cultivate brotherly love and true charity. Each leper was allowed seven loaves of bread a week, five of white and two of brown, made from corn "just as it had been thrashed from the sheaf." Every seventh month he had fourteen gallons of ale or eight pence; on Christmas-day, forty gallons of ale or forty pence, two quarters of pure and fine com, and his share of fourteen shillings, to be applied to the purchase of mufflers. On St. Martin's day each one had a pig from the common herd, the patients taking choice in the order of seniority of admission, or a money equivalent m case pigs were scarce. Other periodical allowances were a bushel of beans 01 peas every winter; a quarter of oats on the 14th of February; two bushels of salt, and four shillings for clothing, on the 24 th of June; a penny on St. Alban's, St. Julian's, and Easter days; a half-penny on Ascension day "for the taking away from themselves of dirt"; and flour for pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. With these gifts they were commanded to be content.

Offices of Forests.—A writer who narrates the history of the woods and pastures of Lynn, Mass., in the Transcript of that city, says that the "Lynn woods have had three periods of usefulness. Down to 1706 they furnished pasturage and timber and shelter to the village. In their second period, covering the life of the town in its shifting from the pastoral to mechanical pursuits, they were still useful, although restricted to furnishing fuel to the inhabitants. As time went on, and cheap coal came in with the ever-advancing density of population, it seemed as if the slaughtering brick-maker and fire-fiend would render the woods a desert and a menace to our fair town." But a period of greater usefulness, according to Garden and Forest, has come. The