ing, though speculating on its progress from the East, Erasmus Wilson says:

"From Phoenicia, from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, a knowledge of the bath may have spread along the southern coast of the Mediterranean, through Egypt, Tripoli, and Algiers, to Morocco and the Pillars of Hercules; or it may, as Mr. Urquhart suggests, have been earliest in use among the nations of Mauritania, and have been carried by the Moors into the countries of the East. From Phoenicia, the knowledge of the Bath may have followed the line of caravan communication into Russia, Persia, China, and Hindostan; while the ships of the then greatest maritime country in the world would have carried it to Greece, to Ireland, and to America."Eastern Baths, p. 12.

This is on the assumption that the Bath originated in the East, of which Mr. Wilson says "there seems little doubt;" but there is no evidence as yet discovered to sustain such a supposition, or indeed to determine positively among what people, or at what remote period, the Hot-Air Bath originated. There is, however, no evidence at all of the Hot-Air Bath having existed in Western Europe until introduced there by the Romans. For nearly 400 years they maintained their supremacy in Britain, and the ruins of their Baths afford unquestionable evidence of the civilization that accompanied them. Bernan, in his History of Warming, is of opinion that the Baths erected by the Romans in England were constructed purely for sanitary purposes, without any luxurious embellishments, and although massive and extensive structures, as their remains testify, they were not designed after the magnificent models of the vast and gorgeous Therma that ornamented Rome.

With the establishment of Christianity at Rome the decline of the Bath commenced, to which various circumstances contributed. As all the thermal springs were dedicated to heathen deities, they were universally abandoned by the Christians, and the use of the waters held to be sinful. In like manner the magnificent Baths were looked upon as heathen temples, to enter which, it was alleged, would be tantamount to an acknowledgment of the existence and power of the fabulous divinities whose statues adorned their noble halls and porticos. Thus in

all ages superstitious ignorance runs riot from one ridiculous. extreme to another.

But the removal of the seat of empire from Rome to Constantinople, which followed shortly after the conversion of Constantine, deprived the Baths of the Imperial patronage which was so necessary to sustain them. In the absence of proper control and management, scenes of disorder took place in the Baths, and they became the resort of the idle, the dissolute, and the riotous. Then followed the destruction of the stupendous acqueducts by which a sufficient water supply was brought into Rome, and without which the thermæ could not be maintained. It was in the year A.D. 408 that Alaric the Goth penetrated into Italy, and laid siege to Rome, and successive invasions consummated the barbarous ruin he commenced.

"All these causes contributed," observes Cameron, "to the destruction of the Baths;" and at the same time, indeed, to the ruin of many other noble monuments of ancient genius and art. St. Jerome, writing about this time, with gratification at the destruction and decay that was overwhelming the architectural glories of the city, says :-"The capital has lost its former lustre, the remains of the Pagan superstition of Rome are covered with dust and cobwebs, the people run in flocks from their half-ruined temples to the tombs of our martyrs." In the sixteenth century, the great hall of the Baths of Diocletian, which had survived the havoc of time and barbarism, was converted into a church by Michael Angelo, and consecrated by the name of S. Maria de Angelis, while in the enclosure of the Baths was founded a monastery of the Carthusian order.

Although the hot-air Bath was thus destroyed throughout Western Europe, and the very knowledge of it obliterated for some fourteen hundred years, it survived in other lands. At Constantinople the Grecks preserved it, and the Turks obtained a knowledge of it from the Egyptians, and soon learned to appreciate it as an invaluable sanitary institution. "When first seen by the Turks," observes Mr. Urquhart, "the Bath was a practice of their enemies, religious and political; they were

themselves the filthiest of mortals; yet no sooner did they see the Bath than they adopted it, made it a necessary adjunct to every settlement, and princes and sultans endowed such institutions for the honor of their names." In Russia, generally throughout Asia, in America, and in Ireland, Baths, rude and imperfect in many essential respects, but still producing somewhat similar effects, have existed from remote ages. Johnson, in his Travels Through Part of the Russian Empire, says:

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"No class of people seems to pay more attention to personal cleanliness than the Russians, taken collectively; yet, perhaps, there are none who live - filthily clad, taken individually. In various parts of the city (St. Petersburg) public baths are established, and constantly frequented by all ranks, but particularly by the lowest. Their religion, in some measure, enforces the use of the bath; but as they take little or no bodily exercise, they find the use of the bath act as a powerful remedy in carrying off the superabundant humours, occasioned by the quantity and nature of their food, independently of the enjoyment they find in it.

"Scores of individuals mingle together in an heated apartment, and after being sweated, switched, and half-boiled, rush into the open air like so many frantic satyrs and plunge into the coldest water.

"In these heated apartments a range of steps extend from the floor to the roof, which at the top is covered with bricks, and heated from a flue underneath. The heat is in proportion to the ascent of the steps; pipes are fixed in different parts of the room, conveying hot water, which is occasionally thrown over the heated bricks, and rises up in the form of hot steam.

"In this heated room as many individuals enter as choose. Each person is accommodated with a small wooden pailful of hot water, and a bunch of the soft twigs of the birch tree, with which he switches his body, at the same time pouring hot water over his head, which is increased in temperature, in proportion to the excess of perspiration. When the body has arrived at the highest state of heat they suddenly rush into the open air, and scour themselves with soap and cold water. The operation of bathing occupies nearly an hour. The heat at which these baths are taken would be insupportable to a person not in the habit of using it. Here it is used summer and winter; and many of them rush out of the hot bath in winter and roll in the snow. They look upon the bath as a sovereign remedy for all diseases and complaints, but particularly in cases of indigestion. Adjoining to the bath appropriated to the men, is a similar one for the women, who, in hordes, perform the same ceremony."

There is one statement which Mr. Johnson makes that involves

an error it may be just as well to correct. He says the heat of the Russian Bath would be insupportable to a person not in the habit of using it. Now, it is not the temperature of the Bath that would render it insupportable, for the temperature seldom ranges above 130° or 140°-while, as we will see, it is supported at much higher degrees even in such a Bath-but the highly faulty means employed to create and maintain the temperature-viz., throwing water on the heated bricks to rise up in the form of steamy vapour. In a properly constructed and regulated hot-air Bath a temperature twice as great can be supported without the slightest inconvenience, and higher still, should curative purposes render it expedient. Mr. Johnson, writing more than half a century ago, may be excused for committing such a mistake, especially when we find "duly qualified practitioners," in our day, committing far greater, when there are abundant facilities for obtaining correct information on the subject. In a word, a Bath heated by the means Mr. Johnston describes is essentially a faulty Bath, however much it may be better than none at all, and this applies to all the various forms of Bath in different countries we are now about to notice.

Dr. E. D. Clarke, in his Travels, at the commencement of this century, in describing the Baths at Moscow, says:—

"Passing the public streets of the city, a number of men and women are often seen stark naked, lounging about before the public Baths, and talking together without the smallest sense of shame, or of the indecency of the exhibition. As soon as the inhabitants of these northern nations have endured the suffocating heat of their vapour baths-which is so great that Englishmen would not conceive it possible to exist an instant in such a temperature-they stand naked, covered with profuse perspiration, cooling themselves in the open air. In summer they plunge into cold water; during winter they roll about in snow, without sustaining any injury, or even catching cold. When the Russians leave a Bath of this kind, they, moreover, drink copious draughts of mead, as cold as it can be procured. These practices, which would kill men of other nations, (!) seemed to delight them, and to add strength to their constitutions.

Being troubled with rheumatic pain, brought on by a sudden change of weather-the thermometer falling, in one day, from 84° of Fahrenheit nearly to the freezing point-the author was persuaded to try a Russian Bath. Nothing could be more filthy or more revolting than one of these

places, for they are commonly filled with vermin. He had been recommended, however, to use the Georgian Bath, situate in the suburbs: this being described as the best in Moscow. It required more courage to enter this den than many of our countrymen would exert for a similar purpose. The building was a small wooden hut; at one end of it was a recess, black and fearful as the entrance to Tartarus. Two naked figures, with long beards, conducted him to this spot, where, pointing to a plank covered by a single sheet, with a pillow, they told him to deposit his clothes, and to repose, if he thought proper; but upon the sheet a number of cockroaches and crickets had usurped the only spot where a person might venture to sit down. As soon as he was undressed, they led him through a gloomy passage into a chamber called the Bath: the ceremonies of which place will now be particularly described.

"Upon the left hand were cisterns of water; and upon the edges of these cisterns appeared a row of polished brass vessels. Towards the right was a stone; and in the middle of the room a step to a platform elevated above the floor. The hot vapour being collected near the roof, the more the bather ascends the greater is the degree of heat to which he is exposed. A choice of temperature is therefore offered to him. On each side of the platform was a stove, in shape exactly resembling the tombs in our churchyards. The upper surface of each stove was covered with a bed of reeds, and over the reeds was placed a sheet. The author was directed to mount upon one of these stoves, and to extend himself upon the sheet; having done this, he found himself nearly elevated to the roof of the Bath, and the heat of the ascending vapour threw him immediately into a most profuse perspiration.

"The sensation resembled what he had formerly experienced in a subterraneous cavern, called the Bath of Nero, upon the coast of Baia, near Naples. He neglected to take a thermometer with him on this occasion; but the ordinary temperature of a Russian Bath is well known: it varies from 104° to 122° of Fahr., and sometimes, upon the upper stages near the roof, it is 20 degrees above fever heat (132° Fahr.) Thus situate, a man began to rub his skin with a woollen cloth, until the exterior surface of it peeled off.

"As soon as he had finished this operation with the woollen cloth, he was desired to descend; and then several vessels of warm water were poured upon his head, whence it fell all over his body. He was next placed upon the floor, and the assistant washed his hair, scratching his head in all parts. Afterwards, he made him again ascend the stove; when once more being stretched at length, a copious lather of soap was prepared, and his body was again rubbed; after this, he was made to descend a second time, and was again soused with vessels of water. He was then desired to extend himself on the stove for the third time, and informed that the greatest degree of heat would now be given. To prepare for this, they cautioned