Properties.

The water of this spring is a pleasant cathartic, and has also alterative and tonic properties, and is moreover a very delightful beverage.  Two or three glasses in the morning is the dose as a cathartic.  As an alterative and diuretic, it should be taken in small quantities during the day.  We have seen stronger commendations of this water from the highest medical authority than of any other.

Exportation of the Water.

After a refreshing draught from this sparkling and delicious fountain, let us not fail to examine the proprietors’ peculiar and very perfect method of bottling and barreling the Excelsior water by its own hydrostatic pressure.  Since last season a handsome brick bottling-house has replaced the ancient wooden structure.  Entering this bottling-house we find our way to a capacious and well-lighted cellar, in which we discover a perpendicular opening some ten feet in diameter; this proves to be a circular brick vault, in whose depths the process of filling is performed.  Twelve feet below the surface of the spring a block tin tube conveys the water into reservoirs placed at the bottom of this vault.  These reservoirs are strong oak barrels, lined with pure block tin in such a manner as to be perfectly gas-tight, and furnished with two tubes, one quite short and the other extending from the top to the bottom of the reservoir.  Then, by filling the reservoirs through the long tube by hydrostatic pressure, the air is excluded, while the gas is not allowed to escape.  When sold on draught, it is necessary simply to connect the long tube with the draught tube, and the short tube with an air pump, when the water can be forced out by the pressure of the air, and will flow forth sparkling and delicious as at the spring, without being re-charged with gas.

[Illustration:  GEYSER SPRING THE SPOUTING SPRING]

Having concluded our investigation, and tarried to notice the MINNEHAHA, UNION, and other springs which bubble up in this immediate vicinity, we have now the choice of continuing along the banks of a winding stream to the Eureka and White Sulphur Springs, or of returning by the way of Lake avenue.  But should we prefer the healthful exercise of walking, we may dismiss our carriage and stroll into those magnificent woods that border the hill and valley for half a mile between Excelsior Spring and the village.  Through them there is a wide and shady path, well known to visitors who love the picturesque, and along its winding way is found the shortest walk to the center of the village.

The beauty of this region would seem to indicate it as the proper site for the future Central Park of Saratoga.

THE GEYSER SPOUTING SPRING

Is about a mile and a half below the village, on the Ballston road, and near the railroad.  Business address, “Geyser Spring.”

History.