Some of them issued high up, in
rocky clefts; others at the middle heights, among vineyards and
orchards; the majority at, or near, the seashore. All of these springs,
he tells us, had the following features in common: they were more or
less hot, unpleasant to the taste, of foetid odour and therefore unfit
for culinary or other common uses. "But let it not be supposed," he
hastens to add, "that they were worthless, inasmuch as there is no such
thing as a worthless gift of Providence. Whoever argues on such
fallacious lines," he says, "will stand convicted both of folly and of
irreverence, seeing that it is the business of mankind, when confronted
by a phenomenon which seems to mock their intelligence, humbly to
ponder the evidence--to investigate causes and ascertain results." In
the present case the utility of the waters, if not for cooking or
drinking then for other specific purposes, had been put to the proof
time out of mind, in an empirical fashion; though it was not till the
reign of the Good Duke Alfred that a series of classical experiments
placed our knowledge of their medicinal properties on a sound
scientific footing.
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