Among the conveniences which this city affords in an enviable degree and in great abundance, are
BATHS.
Those of Paris, of every description, still retain their former pre-eminence. The most elegant are the Bains Chinois on the north Boulevards, where, for three francs, you may enjoy the pleasure of bathing in almost as much luxury as an Asiatic monarch. Near the Temple and at the Vauxhall d'Été, also on the old Boulevards, are baths, where you have the advantage of a garden to saunter in after bathing.
On the Seine are several floating baths, the most remarkable of which are the Bains Vigier, at the foot of the Pont National. The vessel containing them is upwards of 200 feet in length by about 60 in breadth, and presents two tiers of baths, making, on both decks, 140 in number. It is divided in the middle by a large transparent plate of glass, which permits the eye to embrace its whole extent; one half of which is appropriated to men; the other, to women. On each deck are galleries, nine feet wide, ornamented with much architectural taste. On the exterior part of the vessel is a promenade, decorated with evergreens, orange and rose trees, jasmines, and other odoriferous plants. By means of a hydraulic machine, worked by two horses, in an adjoining barge, the reservoirs can be emptied and filled again in less than an hour.
The Bains Vigier are much frequented, as you may suppose from their daily consumption of two cords of wood for fuel. Tepid baths, at blood-heat, are, at present, universally used by the French ladies, and, apparently, with no small advantage. The price of one of these is no more than 30 sous, linen, &c. included.
If you want to learn to swim, you may be instructed here in that necessary art, or merely take a look at those acquiring it, at the
SCHOOL OF NATATION.
The Seine is the school where the lessons are given, and the police takes care that the pupils infringe not the laws of decency.
It is certain that, as far back as the year 1684, means were proposed in London to transmit signs to a great distance in a very short space of time, and that, towards the close of the seventeenth century, a member of the Academy of Sciences made, near Paris, several minute experiments on the same subject. The paper read at the Royal Society of London, and the detail of the experiments made in France, seem to suggest nearly the same means as those now put in practice, by the two nations, with respect to