“In the history of the little Duchy of Nassau, the discovery of this spring forms a story full of innocence and simplicity. Once upon a time there was a heifer, with which everything in nature seemed to disagree. The more she ate the thinner she grew; the more her mother licked her hide, the rougher and the more staring was her coat. Not a fly in the forest would bite her; never was she seen to chew the cud, but, hidebound and melancholy, her hips seemed actually to be protruding from her skin. What was the matter with her no one knew; what could cure her no one could divine. In short, deserted by her master and her species, she was, as the faculty would term it, ‘given over.’ In a few weeks, however, she suddenly reappeared among the herd, with ribs covered with flesh, eyes like a deer, and skin sleek as a mole’s; breath sweetly smelling of milk, saliva hanging in ringlets from her jaw! Every day seemed to re-establish her health, and the phenomenon was so striking that the herdsman, feeling induced to watch her, discovered that regularly every evening she wormed her way in secret into the forest, until she reached an unknown spring of water, from which, having refreshed herself, she quietly returned to the valley. This trifling circumstance, scarcely known, was almost forgotten by the peasant, when a young Nassau lady began to show exactly the same incomprehensible symptoms as the heifer. Mother, sisters, friends, father, all tried to cure her, but in vain, and the physician had actually ‘Taken his leave with sighs and sorrow, Despairing of his fee to-morrow,’ when the herdsman, happening to hear of her case, prevailed upon her at last to try the heifer’s secret remedy. She did so, and in a very short time, to the utter astonishment of her friends, she became one of the stoutest and roundest young women in the duchy.” Sir Francis Head goes on to describe how he was conducted along subterranean passages to the source of the baths, and was astonished to find serpents swimming in the water, and still more astonished to hear his cicerone declare, “_C’est ce qui donne la qualité à ces eaux!_” Schlangen, or serpents, are very common in this part of the duchy of Nassau, and hence the name Schlangenbad. _Baden-Baden_ is at once one of the most frequented and most picturesque baths in Europe. The temperature of the water varies from 115° Fahr. to 144° Fahr, and the elevation above the sea-level is 616 feet. The waters contain only 22 grains of solid ingredients to the pint, the chief of which is common salt (16-1/2 grains). The celebrated hot purgative water of _Carlsbad_, although formerly used for bathing, is now chiefly employed for drinking. Bathing is carried on to a very large extent at _Vichy_ (in the Department of Allier, in France), although these waters are chiefly used as internal remedies.