St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1878-01-18
The Hot Springs of Arkansas.
Hon. C. W. Willard in Montpelier Freeman.

Hon. C. W. Willard in Montpelier Freeman
Hot SPRINGS, ARK, Dec. 25, ~.
Hot Springs is city. 1t has mayor
and aldermen, and police and steam
fire engine, and a debt and various
other similar luxuries. 1t has shop
keepers, druggists, doctors, cololed peO-
pie, dogs, goats, pigs and poultry as its
more or less permanent inhabitants,
and transient population of invalids
sometimes as numerous as its residents.
1t is dropped into narrow detile of
the Ozark Mountains, never intended
by nature, Gf nature ever has inten-
tions) for the site of town. In Ver-
mont the location would be called a
ravine. In the Rocky Mountains it
would be called a canyon. With skill
ful engineering it might have furnished
space for a very narrow guage railway,
by encroaching on the channel of the
creek, and cutting into the base of those
spurs of the mountains. In the natural
state more than this wouldn't have
seemed possible. Yet town of cheap,
rickety, small wooden buildings, has
grown up along the ravine, and street
narrow, and in other respects wretched
enough to make travelling punishment,
contends with the brook for the right of
way through the gap. A quarter of a
mile north of the Hot Springs Mountain
the sides of the ravine grow less pre-
cipitous, the one ravine becomes two,
(if that is pOssible,) there is Il better
chance to anchor house on the hill
sides, and geographically the town i'm
proves, as it does in small degree in
the character of its buildings. At the
hotel where we are, it is possible to See
the sky, without resting ones hat rim
on his shoulders. Sunrise and sunset
are separated 10y an interval of several
hours, and mornings and evenings do
not succeed each other as rapidly as in
other parts of the valley.
1t is not singular, however, that IL
town should have grown up here. The
| fifty or more hot springs, varying in
temperature from 90o to I50o, which
are found in the channel of the creek
and on the mountain east of it, and
which have undoubted healing power,
would build up town anywhere. They
are ancient i'll reputation, and are sup
posed to be the fountain of youth sought
by Ponce de Leon and afterward Her
nando de Soto made voyage in pur-
suit of them more than three hundred
years ago, penetrating the wilderness us
faI west IT'S the Mississippi, where he
died disappointed and broken hearted.
| The Indians knew their virtues, but it
is not recorded that their longevity was
increased thereby, though they should
have been made better by them, as they
gave them no excuse for the absence OF
that cleanliness which is said to be next
to godliness. Something over half Il
century ago they began to be known to
the present race of white men, but as
they were remote from settled portions
of the country, aud not until the build
ing of railways west of the Mississippi
easily accessible for invalids, their ex
tended reputation is comparatively
modern. Now they are advertised by
the letters of travellers, the narrated ex-
periences of those who have been cured
by their use, by articles in magazines,
and by circulars of railroads whose traf-
tic is largely increased by the winter
travel in this direction; and their repu-
tatIon is likely TO be increased, and
quite possibly to become as manent-
ly famous, as that of the Springs at
Bath, England, or Baden Baden, Ger
many.
The waters are abundant, greatly be-
yond any present use made of them,
and can he carried considerable dis
tances i'll pipes without being SO far re-
duced i'll temperature as to be unsuited
for bathing. 1t is doubtful, however,
whether any bath is us good us would
be one in the native fountain, where
the temperature could be endured, as
at least some of the qualities of the
water are lost in Il removal to any dis
tance. A trough through which the
water runs soon becomes incrusted with
mineral deposit, and have seen one
snch. at least an inch thick, said to have
been made in two years and one of the
industries of the town is the preparation
and sale of variety of trinkets en-
crusted, and thus apparently petrifed
by being suspended under the drip of
those waters. The principal minerals
found by an analysis of the waters are
sulphate and carbonate of lime and sui
phate and carbonate of soda, although
iron, magnesia and arsenic are present
in most, if not all the water. The dis
eases partially or wholly removed bv
bathing in, and drinking the waters,
are rheumatism, paralysis, neuralgia,
torpid livers, alterations and intiamma-
tiOns of the skin, gout, catarrh, syphilis,
indeed nearly all diseases but pull
monary consumption are claimed to
yield more or less to the treatment, and
there is no doubt that many persons
who have tried nearly every known
remedy elsewhere without benefit have
been cured here; and the completeness
and suddenness of the cures remind one
of the New Testament accounts of
miraculous healing.
The town has resident population
of $500, half of it colored, and like the
population of other southern towns.
The hotels have not yet put on the
magnifcence of Saratoga or Newport.
but answer the needs of invalids very
well, and at prices varying from ten to
twenty-five dollars week. The agri-
culture OF the country about,-if it is
capable of any,-is NOT yet developed,
and supplies are brought largely from
st. Louis, more than four hundred miles
from here. When the United States
government gets through its adjustment
of the titles to the land here, Ia com
mission being now in session for that
purpOse) undoubtedly the town will
rapidly improve in appearance, and the
present unsightly and cheap buildings
be replaced by better Structures. The
government proposes to make reser-
walton of Hot Springs Mountain, thus
keeping control of the springs, but al
lowing the waters to be taken to bath
ing houses for reasonable rent; and
the commissioners have large discre-
tionary powers in laying out streets.
and making the new city which is suIe
to be here in the near future. Yer,
MANY of the men In business are MONTH