National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-04-20
REyELING IN ORANGES.
Among the Springs of Fiorida-CurfOus
Comments About Them.

Special Corresponding Of The Republican,
GREEN Cove SPRINGS, April 14.-f you
should want to find place which win give you
an idea of perfect peace, with a climate that Is
almost perfeetion-a place where the soft south
wind rustles through the orange groves and sways
to and fro the Spanish moss that hangs from the
limbs of the stately cypress-a place where the
mineral waters will yank the rheumatism out OF
you in the shortest space of time, according to the
unanimous opinion of our landlord, the mayor of
the city, and common council-in fine, If you want
to find place where
YOU CAN'T SPEND YOUR MONEY
or contract debts except at your hotel, and those
you can pay with your cheek, come TO Green Cove
Springs These springs are easily reached from
Jacksonville in two hours by steamers which leave
that city in the morning-run up Tin any otner
part of the world but Florida il would be running
DOWN to Palatka, and returning in the evening.
On arriving at Green Cove and walking about two
hundred yards,
YOU ARE UsHERED INTO
remarkably clear neat and comfortable looking
hotel-a hotel which viii compare favOrably with
any in Washington-surrOunded as yOu mme-
diately are by Northern people, among them
an old friend or two, you would imagine yourself
in some fine hotel at Northern watering place.
did you not glance at the thermometer and find the
mercury among the seventies, or east your eye
across the lawn and find your hotel surrounded by
orange, cyprus, and other semi tropical trees.
THE GREAT FEATURE
of this place, of course, is the sulphur springs.
This spring is only one of many hundreds Of the
same kind to be found in Florida. At Enterprise
there are two on the place of Mr.. De Bary, one of
them being the largest, it is supposed, in Florida;
but il is not utilized and might as we'll be large
beer spring a sulphur-spring, for all the good
quite strongly impregnated with sulphur, and
tn cir temperature is 80 at all seasons.
THEY HAVE THE REPUTATION
of curing rheumatism and kindred diseases. but
are death ON nsumptives-cOnsequently no con-
sumptives are here, and you meet no invallds
except good, healthy looking rheumatic patients
and but few of them. This is the only water used
in the hotels and by the people of the neighbor-
hood for drinking and cooking, and consequently
your olfactoIies can detecta green cover anywhere
inside of twenty yards The discharge of water
from this spring is very large three thousand
gallons per minute enough to run any first class
temperance society in the county. The
| VILLAGE, OR TOWN, OR CITY,
whichever it may be called is a model in its way
1t contains several hundred inhabitants, has its
mayor, its common council, its town officers, and
what is singular all this ostentatious display OF
place and power costs the citizens not a single
cent There are no salaries, no taxes, and conse-
quently no defalcations and squandering of the
peoples money. Why cannot Washington and
New York try this plan? 1t would pay. Crime
| here is of rare occurrence. The only arrest made
| for more than q year past was that of decrepit
old woman
FOR SELLING A SPOOL OF COTTON
in the street. This is also remarkably temperate
place; l have not seen an intoxicated person in
the street or elsewhere, but 10 do justice to the
guests ofthe hotel and the citizens of the town. ii
necessary state that this is fault of theirs fol
there is no liquor sold in the vicinity 1t has been
a matter of considerable speculation among
sdudpS and others as to the source from which
comes the vast amount of mineral waters-chiefy
! sulphur-which is discharged by the Florida
| Springs.
SEVERAL THEORIES HAVE BEEN ADVANCED.
One is that the springs, which mostly near the
waters edge, are fed from lakes ponds and sYampS
further in the interior and from twenty five tC
fifty feet above the water level, whose waters per
colate through the sands, picking up on their way
enough of the sulphates, corbonateS and other
ates to become mineral waters. Another theory is
that the waters of these springs come from the
high grounds Of the neighboring State of Georgia
THERE IS STILL ANOTHER THEORY,
! believed in by the common people, but having bu
| few scientific adherents, and that is that His
Majesty has his headquarters and his principal
furnace under this State. The only plausible rea-
| son that have heard advanced in favor of thi:
theory is that the State is thoroughly Democratic
and that friends are fond of being close together
| A few more encounters with the sulphur water Of
Green Cove will prepare me to meet and, hope
vanquish the mosquitoes and alhgatofs of the
| Oeklamaha. II.