Be this as it may, Carlsbad may now be considered as the grand “MAISON DE SANTÉ” of Europe, where the patients support themselves, on the principle of the Sanataria in general, and where Mr. Owen might find his social system almost perfect. Thus we have at Carlsbad (and indeed at most of the great German spas,) our food in common—our physic in common—and even our physician in common. The air we breathe, the water we drink, and gardens and walks where we exercise, are all in common. The socialists might even find little reason to complain of that “accursed thing,” MATRIMONY, for although _matches_ are occasionally projected at Carlsbad, I believe that _marriage_ is seldom perpetrated there.[68] This great valetudinarium then presents four or five wards or hygeian fountains, of which the SPRUDEL stands most conspicuous. I was completely disappointed at the first sight of this lion of the Spas. The descriptions and drawings of the spring are most outrageously exaggerated. One would expect to see a fountain of boiling fluid rising to a height of six or eight feet, and falling down in fervid and foaming showers. No such thing. During half the time, it does not rise above the level of the kettle in which it boils; and is often below that mark. Then it mounts a foot or so, and every now and then spirts a small irregular and ragged pillar or column of foaming water to a height of two, three, or perhaps four feet above the reservoir. More frequently, however, it squirts a jet of water to one or the other side of the kettle, which splashes into the conduits that carry it off. The whole of the kettle, reservoir, and exits are coated with calcareous deposits, and, in many parts covered with green matter, the bodies or receptacles of animalculæ. Still the Sprudel is a stupendous ebullition of hot medicinal water from some infernal laboratory, amply sufficient for the expurgation of a whole nation! The temperature of the water is 168° of Fahrenheit, each pint containing about 44 grains of solid matters, of which the sulphates, carbonates, and muriates of soda form 37 grains. A trace, and merely a trace, of iron is found in the water. Some very recent analyses have also detected traces of iodine, and of an animal substance, together with some sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Its taste is certainly not very agreeable and rather mawkish—and though clear at the fountain, it is turbid when cold. It very much resembles the Cockbrunnen in savour. The second spring is the MUHLBRUNN, whose temperature is nearly 30° below that of the SPRUDEL; but whose constituent salts are the same. Nevertheless this difference of temperature is supposed to produce a difference in the taste of the water, and renders it more acceptable to the stomachs, or at least to the palates, of many of the drinkers at Carlsbad.[69]