Spa

Spa, a watering-place of Belgium, stands amid wooded and romantic hills 20 miles by rail SE. of Liège. The principal buildings are the casino, bath-house, and similar institutions for the use of visitors. One of the chief charms of the place is its beautiful drives. The springs, all chalybeate and alkaline, are cold, bright, and sparkling, and efficacious in anæmic complaints, nervous diseases, &c. This water is exported to all quarters of the globe. Spa is famed for the manufacture of fancy wooden lacquered ware. Pop. 7278. The number of visitors during the season is about 12,000. The virtue of the waters was known as early as the 14th century, and the place was particularly famous as a fashionable resort in the 16th and 18th centuries. Its public gaming-tables were suppressed in 1872. From Spa the generic term for a watering-place or mineral baths is derived.