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| | Florida fountain of youth Ponce de Leon |
 | | According to tradition, the natives of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Cuba told the early Spanish explorers that in Bimini (Beniny), a land to the north, there was a river, spring or fountain where waters had such miraculous curative powers that any old person who bathed in them would regain his youth. |
 | | A similar legend was known to the Polynesians, whose tradition located the fountain of perpetual youth in Hawaii. |
 | | Ponce de Leon, like most of the other early Spanish explorers and conquerors, was looking primarily for gold, slaves and other "riches," and it is not likely that he actually put much stock in the fable of the fountain of youth, if he had heard about it at all. |
| www.progress.org /fountain.htm (691 words) |
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