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 ANALYSIS OF BOOKS. 



Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 

 for the year 1830. Part II. 



1. Memoir on the occurrence of Iodine and Bromine in certain 

 Mineral Waters of South Britain. By Charles Daubeny, M.D., 

 F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Oxford. 

 [Read May 6, 1830.] 



'T'HE author lays claim to being the first who announced to the 

 public the existence of bromine in the mineral springs of Eng- 

 land ; a discovery similar to that which had been previously made 

 by others in many analogous situations on the Continent. His reason 

 for offering the present communication to the Royal Society is, that 

 he has examined on the spot a great number of mineral springs, 

 and endeavoured to obtain, wherever it was practicable, an approxi- 

 mation to the proportion which iodine and bromine bear to the 

 other ingredients. He has also aimed at forming an estimate of 

 their comparative frequency and abundance in the several rock 

 formations ; an object of considerable interest in geology, as tending 

 to identify the products of the ancient seas in their most minute par- 

 ticulars with those of the present ocean. The results of his inquiries 

 are given in the form of a table, in which the springs, whose waters 

 he examined, are classified according to the geological position of 

 the strata from which they issue, and of which the several columns 

 exhibit the total amount of their saline ingredients, the nature and 

 proportion of each ingredient, as ascertained by former chemists, or 

 by the author himself; and lastly, where they contained either iodine 

 or bromine, the proportions these substances bear to the quantities 

 of water, and likewise to the chlorine also present in the same 

 spring. He finds that the proportion of iodine to chlorine varies in 

 every possible degree, and that even springs which are most strongly 

 impregnated with common salt, are those in which he could not 

 detect the smallest trace of iodine. The same remark, he observes, 

 applies also to bromine j whence he concludes, that although those 

 two principles may perhaps never be entirely absent where the 

 muriates occur, yet their relative distribution is exceedingly unequal. 

 The author conceives that these analyses will tend to throw some 

 light on the connection between the chemical constitution of mineral 

 waters and their medicinal virtues. Almost the only two brine 

 springs, properly so called, which have acquired any reputation as 

 medicinal agents, namely, that of Kreutzriach in the Palatinate, and 

 that of Ashby de la Zouche in Leicestershire, contained a much 

 larger proportion than usual of bromine ; a substance, the poisonous 

 quality of which was ascertained by its discoverer, Balard. The 



