Persons interested in the cold ends of the earth will be fascinated with this book by Raymond Malley, a semiretired US senior diplomat and industrial executive. As a child, he became enchanted with Baffin Island and the Arctic. Later, he visited them and was so smitten that he then spent years exploring the Arctic, the North Atlantic, and Antarctica on shipsa Russian icebreaker, a German container ship, German and Norwegian cruise ships, and a French luxury cruise yacht, usually accompanied by his wife Josette. This book contains notes and reflections from his travels and adventures. Read about cold and icy waters, violent storms, icebergs, glaciers, mountains and valleys, and abandoned whaling stations. And read also about those who live therehumans, polar bears, walrus, penguins, whales, and others. His writing is crisp, frank, and revealing, and well worth a read.

Modern spas are wellness resorts that offer beauty treatments, massages and complementary therapies. Victorian spas were sanitariums, providing "water cure" treatments supplemented by massage, vibration, electricity and radioactivity. Rooted in the palliative health reforms of the early 19th century, spas of the Victorian Age grew out of the hydrotherapy institutions of the 1840s--an alternative to the horrors of bleeding and purging. The regimen focused on diet, rest, cessation of alcohol and foods that upset the stomach, stress reduction and plenty of water. The treatments, though sometimes of a dubious nature, formed the transition from the primitive methods of "heroic medicine" to the era of scientifically based practices.

This book provides information about springs, mineral waters, and thermal waters used for municipal, industrial, and agricultural water supplies and the rapidly expanding bottled water industry. The role of springs is described for ancient civilizations, military campaigns and, in more recent times, for tourism and health spas. In addition, their source, occurrence, and methods for development and use are described. The book contains data obtained from major hydrogeologic databases and from leading hydrogeologists.

The new guidelines are meant to protect public health, help evaluate development projects near freshwater and recreational sites and assess potential health aspects of recreational projects.