though sprinkled here and there with quaint shadows, is not sufficiently remarkable to tempt us further. "I can now," he says, "neither walk nor drive, nor oftentimes lie, but must continually sit; never to mention my powers of mind and body, which are as good as entirely gone. Yet it pleaseth the blessed God to keep me in life; nay, He

is so gracious as at times to grant me some relief from pain. May He add this one favour more, and spare my beloved wife to close my eyes; and may He reunite us at last with the elect before His throne, to praise Him in a blessed eternity for all His mercy and faithfulness!"

Ir the value of an article is measured by its utility, it is scarcely possible to form a sufficiently high estimate of the value of iron. It has been one of the most powerful agents in promoting civilization; its uses and applications are far beyond all enumeration; and indeed it is difficult to conceive anything conducive to the happiness or advancement of mankind, with which iron has not to do in some way or other. This is truly the Age of Iron ;-and its production keeps steady pace with our rapid intellectual and physical progress. Steam, railways, the printing press, the electric telegraph, and almost all other inventions of importance have to thank iron for their success, and have, in return, stimulated and improved its production. Let any one try to picture to himself what we should do, and what we should be, without iron, and he will soon learn to appreciate its value.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the latest applications of iron is the immense magnitude of articles made of it. The hull of a first-class iron ship such as the Warrior is a marvel of manufacture; so is one of the huge modern armour plates; so is Sir Wm. Armstrong's 22-ton wrought-iron gun. But it is not always magnitude which determines utility. A needle is a more useful thing than a 600-pounder; and there is an application of iron which, though it deals with quantities still smaller, yields to no other in general

interest to mankind. This is the use of iron as a medicine.

Physiologists tell us that the most important component of the blood, that grand element of the animal system, consists of certain particles called "red globules," and that these globules owe their colour and some of their most important properties to the presence of iron. The chief office of the iron is said to be to absorb oxygen from the air in the lungs, and to convey it, by means of the circulation, through the whole system, where it is detached from its vehicle of conveyance, and made to assist in the various physiological processes for which oxygen is so vitally necessary. Hence the difference in colour between arterial and venous blood. In the former the iron is highly oxidized, having a bright red colour; in the latter it has parted with oxygen, and has lost its brilliancy, till this is renewed by further exposure to atmospheric air. It is clear therefore that the presence of a certain quantity of iron in the blood is absolutely necessary to the healthy action of the system, and that, if the quantity falls short, disorder of some kind must ensue. And that this often does take place is well known; for diseases exist, whose name is legion, directly traceable to some form of what is called anæmia, or an impoverished state of the blood, consisting chiefly of a diminution of the proportion of the red globules, and of the quantity of iron they contain. In 1000

of hands, we conducted the ladies to their carriage, where I thought the old prior regarded us with envious eyes. For the rest, we were glad, on religious grounds, that we had parted in kindness; and I must say that this was the only temptation for the sake of religion that I met with in all my travels."

Here follows a long and lively description of Paris and his life there for four months. He attended Professor Jussieu's lectures on botany in the Jardin du Roi, and Geoffroy's on chemistry and materia medica. Falling in with a few fellow-countrymen of rank, he seems with their help to have looked on now and then from a safe distance at the doings of the great world. The queen was confined of twin princesses, on which occasion Seidelin saw the waters play at Versailles. Another time he got into trouble at Marley for fingering the embroidered curtains of Her Majesty's bed. He and his friend behaved like arrant cowards toward their fair proselytizing travelling-companion. They went, he tells us, to Versailles, on Whit Sunday, to see the king and the Knights of the Holy Ghost attend mass in the chapel, where it was said by Cardinal Fleury :— "When the mass was at an end, the king and the knights left the church, and we went after them, and then it came about that we met Madame d'Aubigni with mademoiselle her daughter, whereupon madame immediately cried out, Voilà nos gentilhommes Danois!' With that they got hold of us, and reproached us for not visiting them according to our promise. I excused myself by assuring them that we had forgotten their address, which they therefore repeated, and we promised that we should this time come without fail; but we never went."

In London our friend was astonished chiefly at the rapacity of the Custom House officers, out of whose hands it cost him nearly an "English guinea" to deliver himself, and at the loyal demonstrations which closed the solemnities of George the Second's coronation. "When their royal Majesties had got to

about the middle of the place (Westminster), there commenced these joyful shrieks, Vivat, God bless de Kingh, vivat, God bless de Queen!' whereat all the men swung their hats, and the women their white handkerchiefs; which sight so amazed me that I lost all countenance, forgot their Majesties, and all the grandeur, to gaze alone upon this; indeed, I may say it was the strangest sight I had seen in the whole world. Nay, I was well-nigh getting into trouble because of it, for I was so astonished that I forgot to swing my hat, so that one standing behind me gave me a poke in the back, and they all began to cry, Jacobite !' till I was fain to pull off my hat and swing it

too."

He went home by way of Holland, and, after an absence of six years, set foot on his native islet, and, losing his father soon after his return, settled down to the inevitable successorship. At first he tried to resist, thought Nykjöbing a wretched little hamlet, and started negotiations for a change to the metropolis. But these failed, and he in consequence conceived such a spite against Copenhagen, that he would not go near it for fifteen years. Instead of that he married, and had plenty of children, and gave his excellent wife a great deal of trouble. Then he tried various speculations to give play to the energies which were so imperfectly taxed by the pursuit of pharmacy in Nykjöbing. He turned farmer and grazier and candle-maker, and what not. But his crops failed, and his cattle died, and the rats ate his tallow:-" and that was always the way with everything I tried besides my Apotheke." Trials of a worse sort came in due time. Children died, one son turned out ill, his own health grew infirm. Yet he was neither discontented nor unhappy, and indeed had no cause. From his arm-chair he doubtless often enough rehearsed to untravelling listeners the adventures of his youth beyond sea. Within a few months of his "golden wedding," he began the composition of his autobiography; but the long narrative of his half-century of village life,

though sprinkled here and there with quaint shadows, is not sufficiently remarkable to tempt us further. "I can now," he says, "neither walk nor drive, nor oftentimes lie, but must continually sit; never to mention my powers of mind and body, which are as good as entirely gone. Yet it pleaseth the blessed God to keep me in life; nay, He

is so gracious as at times to grant me some relief from pain. May He add this one favour more, and spare my beloved wife to close my eyes; and may He reunite us at last with the elect before His throne, to praise Him in a blessed eternity for all His mercy and faithfulness!"

Ir the value of an article is measured by its utility, it is scarcely possible to form a sufficiently high estimate of the value of iron. It has been one of the most powerful agents in promoting civilization; its uses and applications are far beyond all enumeration; and indeed it is difficult to conceive anything conducive to the happiness or advancement of mankind, with which iron has not to do in some way or other. This is truly the Age of Iron ;-and its production keeps steady pace with our rapid intellectual and physical progress. Steam, railways, the printing press, the electric telegraph, and almost all other inventions of importance have to thank iron for their success, and have, in return, stimulated and improved its production. Let any one try to picture to himself what we should do, and what we should be, without iron, and he will soon learn to appreciate its value.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the latest applications of iron is the immense magnitude of articles made of it. The hull of a first-class iron ship such as the Warrior is a marvel of manufacture; so is one of the huge modern armour plates; so is Sir Wm. Armstrong's 22-ton wrought-iron gun. But it is not always magnitude which determines utility. A needle is a more useful thing than a 600-pounder; and there is an application of iron which, though it deals with quantities still smaller, yields to no other in general

interest to mankind. This is the use of iron as a medicine.

Physiologists tell us that the most important component of the blood, that grand element of the animal system, consists of certain particles called "red globules," and that these globules owe their colour and some of their most important properties to the presence of iron. The chief office of the iron is said to be to absorb oxygen from the air in the lungs, and to convey it, by means of the circulation, through the whole system, where it is detached from its vehicle of conveyance, and made to assist in the various physiological processes for which oxygen is so vitally necessary. Hence the difference in colour between arterial and venous blood. In the former the iron is highly oxidized, having a bright red colour; in the latter it has parted with oxygen, and has lost its brilliancy, till this is renewed by further exposure to atmospheric air. It is clear therefore that the presence of a certain quantity of iron in the blood is absolutely necessary to the healthy action of the system, and that, if the quantity falls short, disorder of some kind must ensue. And that this often does take place is well known; for diseases exist, whose name is legion, directly traceable to some form of what is called anæmia, or an impoverished state of the blood, consisting chiefly of a diminution of the proportion of the red globules, and of the quantity of iron they contain. In 1000

parts of healthy blood, the average normal proportion of red globules is said to be about 127, and of metallic iron about 0.51; these have been found reduced in cases of anaemia by about one-third, or even more. Our fair readers must not suppose, by our use of this hard Greek word, that the matter does not concern them; on the contrary, they are usually the greatest sufferers from the class of diseases we have mentioned. There are few females in town life who do not know, by sad personal experience, some of the almost infinite varieties of ailment synonymous with, or arising out of, what is popularly called

debility," or "want of tone in the system;" and in a very large number of these cases the fundamental cause of all the mischief is the want of a few grains more of that health-giving metal, a thousand times more precious than gold. Nor are women the only sufferers. The fast life, both bodily and mental, of the present age has brought the more robust sex also considerably under the anæmic category. It is not improbable that a direct relation may exist between the state of the corporeal fluid and that of the mental and nervous energy; and, if this is so, the production of a poem, or the solution of a hard mathematical problem, may have a material effect upon the red globules, and we may say that, whenever a great engineer, like Stephenson or Brunel, racks his brain to design a Britannia Bridge or a Great Eastern, for every ton of iron he puts into the structure, he abstracts a fraction of a grain of the same material from the lifeblood flowing in his veins.

For those ills that our modern flesh is so peculiarly heir to, the obvious remedy is to add to the system the substance which it lacks, and hence preparations of iron form a large element in every doctor's prescriptions, and in every apothecary's stores. Tonics, as they are called, are, now-a-days, the most popular of all medicaments; and rightly so, for, since Nature is after all the only real acting physician, the best of her deputies and assistants devote their chief endeavours to aid her in her beneficent operations.

Tonics are simply aids to Nature, and some of the most valuable tonics are the various preparations of iron. The sulphate, the muriate, the citrate, even the simple oxide of the metal from a blacksmith's forge or from rusty nails, are all made avilable; "steel pills" are almost in as common request as sal-volatile ; and of late some clever fellow, having found out that phosphorus is a large ingredient of the cerebral matter, has given us phosphate of iron, with the view of furnishing us at one draught with both body and brains!

No doubt these preparations are very beneficial; and heaven forbid that any discouragement should be offered to their fuller development or to their enlarged application! But they are still only artificial; and, somehow, Nature has a way of preferring her own productions, when she can get them, to those we make for her. And there is a way of getting iron into the system, which, as it is Nature's own contrivance, is better than the doctor's, however good the latter may be. "Apioтov μèv vowp, water's the thing the best preparation of iron in the world is iron water, and the best iron water in the world is that of Langen Schwalbach in Nassau, where I am now writing this article.

The efficacy of mineral waters in cases of chronic disease is very imperfectly appreciated in England, either by the public or the medical profession. Our own few springs are but little resorted to with any serious intention; and, although we know the principal foreign ones well enough by name, we are too much in the habit of considering them only as resorts for gaiety, or gambling, or for pleasantly passing a holiday, and of attributing the cures they work only to change of air, scene, and occupation. Few of our medical practitioners have taken the trouble to learn much about them, or have qualified themselves to give advice as to their use; and, consequently, when English patients resort to them in serious cases, they often go wrong, and bring discredit on what are really institutions of the highest value. We can afford to allow all that is said

as to the accidental advantages and collateral attractions of the mineral springs. It is true that thousands go to such places as Baden Baden or the Pyrenees merely to enjoy themselves; and small blame to them, for it is impossible to conceive a more delightful mode of passing a holiday. And it is also true that in Baden, and Homburg, and Ems, and some other places, those much-maligned green tables attract considerable numbers. And it is further impossible to deny that the change of scene and habit, the invigorating air, the careful diet and regimen, have an important part in the hygienic effects, and may, indeed, themselves be sufficient in certain cases to effect a cure. But still the real physical changes produced are very, very far beyond anything that can be accounted for in this way, and the therapeutic action of the waters on the system is as positive and well established as that of any article in the Materia Medica. No one who has had the opportunity of learning much about the foreign "Heilquellen" can doubt the reality of their wonderfully healing properties, or can do otherwise than regret that such admirable and beneficent provisions of Nature for the health of mankind should have remained without due appreciation. Almost all the nations of Europe, except ourselves, understand them, and flock to them in shoals, and their study is as much a part of a French or German physician's education as that of any other medicament. The baths in Germany and France are increasing their fame, and extending their operations; and at this moment a company is being formed for the purpose of opening out new sources in a large district of France (the province of Auvergne), where mineral springs have been discovered in great abundance, and of great value, but which have been hitherto undeveloped for want of capital.

But it is our object now to speak of the one particular watering-place which we have already mentioned as celebrated for its fine tonic chalybeate waters. Schwalbach is not unknown to the English public, as it was described

many years ago in a charming little book entitled "Bubbles from the Brunnen of Nassau, by an Old Man." The author states that he was suddenly sentenced, in the cold evening of his life, to repair his worn-out frame by drinking the Schwalbach waters; and, as he toddled about in his old age, with grizzled eyebrows, and stiffened muscles, he was driven to amuse himself by blowing the "Bubbles" which have travelled so far and so wide. This was in 1825; and, if the account the author gave of his age be correct, it is certainly a proof of the miraculous efficacy of the waters that he is now, after forty years, still alive and active, as was proved by his attempt, a short time ago, to upset one of the most prominent historians of the day! The account of the place given in the "Bubbles" is excellent, and still remains, in a great measure, correct; but, though we can lay no claim to follow the "Old Man" in the graces of his style, we conceive the place will bear a few additional words of plain description.

The Taunus mountains, belonging to the Duchy of Nassau, and lying in the space bounded on three sides by the Rhine, the Lahn, and the Maine, are peculiarly rich in mineral waters, containing the celebrated springs of Wiesbaden, Homburg, Ems, Schwalbach, Schlangenbad, Soden, Weilbach, Selters, and others less known. It is also worthy of remark that on their west slope lies the well-known district of the Rheingau, famed for producing the most valuable wines in the world. InIdeed the wine and the water form the great wealth of the little duchy, and furnish the chief elements of its prosperity.

Schwalbach is a small village lying in the heart of the Taunus, about ten miles north-west of Wiesbaden; but the nearest point of access to it is a station called Eltville, on the right bank of the Rhine, a little above the hill of Johannisberg. This place has railway communication from Calais without a break, and may be reached