Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/247

Rh the springs in earnest. To come here and take the baths indiscriminately, when the number and variety are so great, would be much like turning one's self loose in a drug-store and tasting the contents of all the jars in succession. Thus far the principal diseases treated have been gout and rheumatism, and many a sufferer has found relief and been cured of his malady. One bath has been so successful in curing skin diseases that it is known as the 'pain-killer;' its ingredients are sulphate of potash, sulphate of soda, chlorides of sodium, calcium, magnesia, and iron, silica, hydrochloric acid, sulphuretted hydrogen, and traces of alumina, lithium, and iodine. What disease could stand such a combination as that?



"Most of the villages are near hot springs, not so much for the curative properties of the waters as for the convenience of cooking food without the trouble of collecting fuel, or even building a fire. At one