A _The Kings Bath_ B _The Queens Bath_ C _The Cross Bath_ D _The Hot Bath_ E _Gascoins Tower_ F _Sᵗ. Catherines Hospital_ G _Sᵗ. Iohns Hospital_ H _Bridewell_ I _The Play House_ K _Sᵗ. Marys_ L _The Market House_ M _Sᵗ. Peters Cathedral_ N _Sᵗ. Iames’s_ O _The Abby Gate_ P _Sᵗ. Michaels_ Q _Sᵗ. Michaels broadstr._ _Insignia Urbis_ _Insignia ecclesiæ_ _Stukeley delin._ _Parker Sculpᵗ._] [Illustration: 71 Aquæ Solis Iuly 21. 1723. _From the top of the Southern hill._ Cl. Richardo Mead M.D. _tab. d.d. Wˢ. Stukeley_. _Stukeley del._] I observe the whole country hereabouts is a rock of good lime-stone, which is the _minera_ of the water’s heat and virtue: but how that comes to be calcined; by what refined chymistry of Nature sulphur and steel are mixed with it; by what means it acquires and conserves with so much constancy this equable and mighty _focus_, together with the reason of fountains in general; I profess, in my sentiments, is one of the great _arcana_ in philosophy hitherto inscrutable. Behind the southern wall of the King’s Bath is a lesser square, called the Queen’s Bath, with a tabernacle of four pillars in the midst: this is of more temperate warmth, as deriving its water at second-hand from the other. There are likewise pumps and pumping-rooms, for pouring hot streams on any part of the body; which in many cases is very useful, to dissolve sizy concretions about the joints and the like, and recovers the natural elasticity in the relaxed fibres of the solids. The _area_ before this bath and front of the cathedral, is in the centre of the _pentagon_, upon which the city is formed. Why the Romans made it of this unusual figure, I cannot tell: nothing appears from the manner of the ground and situation; but I observe the same of Aix in France. One would be apt to suspect they had a regard to the sacred symbol and mystical character of medicine, which in ancient times was thought of no inconsiderable virtue: this is a pentagonal figure, formed from a triple triangle, called by the name of _Hygeia_, because to be resolved into the Greek letters that compose the word. The Pythagoreans used it among their disciples as a mystical symbol, denoting health; and the cabalistic Jews and Arabians had the same fancy: it is the _pentalpha_, or _pentagrammon_, among the Egyptians; the mark of prosperity. Antiochus Soter, going to fight against the Galatians, was advised in a dream to bear this sign upon his banner; whence he obtained a signal victory. This would make one believe a physician had a hand in projecting this city. Dr. Musgrave thinks it was Scribonius, who accompanied Claudius hither.