frame immersed in them. “After descending a few steps from the dressing-room into the bath-room, I walked over the warm soft sand to the farthest end of the bath, and I laid myself down upon it, near the principal spring, resting my head on a clean wooden pillow. The soothing effect of the water as it came over me, up to the throat, transparent like the brightest gem or aquamarine, soft, genially warm, and gently murmuring, I shall never forget. Millions of bubbles of gas rose from the sand, and played around me, quivering through the lucid water as they ascended, and bursting at the surface to be succeeded by others. The sensation produced by these, as many of them, with their tremulous motion, just _effleuraient_ the surface of the body, like the much vaunted effect of titillation in animal magnetism, is not to be described. _It partakes of tranquillity and exhilaration; of the ecstatic state of a devotee, blended with the repose of an opium eater. The head is calm, the heart is calm, every sense is calm; yet there is neither drowsiness, stupefaction, nor numbness; for every feeling is fresher, and the memory of worldly pleasures keen and sharp._ But the operations of the moral as well as physical man are under the spell of some powerfully tranquillising agent. It is the human tempest lulled into all the delicious playings of the ocean’s after-waves. From such a position I willingly would never have stirred. To prolong its delicious effects what would I not have given! but the bad-meister appeared at the top of the steps of the farther door, and warned me to eschew the danger of my situation; for there is danger even in such pleasures as these, if greatly prolonged. “I looked at the watch and the thermometer before I quitted my station. The one told me I had passed a whole hour, in the few minutes I had spent according to my imagination; and the other marked 29½° of Reaumur, or 98¼° of Fahrenheit. But I found the temperature warmer than that, whenever, with my hand, I dug into the bed of sand, as far down as the rock, and disengaged myriads of bubbles of heated air, which imparted to the skin a satiny softness not to be observed in the effects of ordinary warm baths. “These baths are principally used from five o’clock in the morning until seven, and even much later; and again by some people in the evening. The time allowed for remaining in the water is from half an hour to an hour; but it is held to be imprudent to continue the bath to the latter period, as experience has shown that such sensations as I felt, and have endeavoured to describe, prove ultimately too overpowering to the constitution, if prolonged to excess.”[29] Dr. Kerner, who preceded Dr. Granville, makes use of the following expressions, quoted by the latter author.