Our view of Clifton is from the Ferry, and is from an effective
lithograph, of very recent date.

Added to the charms of the romantic scenery of Clifton are the
attractions of the Bristol Hot Wells, in the vicinity; upon which
fashion has conferred too great celebrity to render description needful.
The richness and grandeur of the scenery of the Hot Wells are almost
inconceivable; in some places the rocks, venerably majestic, rise
perpendicularly, or overhanging, craggy and bare; and in others they are
clothed with luxuriant shrubs and stately trees. From the bottom of
these cliffs, on the east bank of the river, issues the Bristol Hot Well
water. The spring rises out of an aperture in the solid rocks and is
computed to discharge about forty gallons in a minute.

The author of the _History and Beauties of Clifton Hot Wells_, in
describing this scenery, says, "One of the sublimest and most beautiful
scenes in nature is exhibited by those bold and rugged eminences behind
the crescent, known by the name of _St. Vincent's Rocks_, which appear
to have been rent asunder by some violent convulsion of nature." They
are misshapen and massy projections, nearly 300 feet in height. Pieces
of this rock, when broken, have much the appearance of a dark, red
marble; and when struck by a substance of corresponding hardness, emit a
strong sulphureous smell. It is sometimes used as a substitute for
foreign marble for chimney-pieces; but principally for making lime. In
the fissures of these rocks are found those fine crystals usually called
Bristol stones, which are so hard as to cut glass, and sustain the
action of fire and of _aquafortis_; this, however, is only the case with
such as are tinged. The imperfect ones, in which there appears something
like small hairs, white specks, or bubbles of air and water, turn white
when calcined.