On Mineral Waters, 99 



which is borne out by a multiplicity of facts and reasonings— 

 a view which Professor Berzelius, and probably most other 

 chemists, have now embraced. According to its principles, a 

 common solution of several salts, and hence a mineral water, 

 contains as many different salts as the product of the number 

 of its bases by the number of its acids. Thus the Carlsbad 

 water, which yields six different acids and seven different bases, 

 contains forty-two various salts. Should it be asked, what ig 

 the exact proportion of each of these salts in the water, this 

 will depend upon the quantity of water, and its temperature 

 upon the actual quantity of the acids and bases, and upon the 

 degrees of their mutual affinities. In the total absence, how- 

 ever, of a numerical proportion relative to the last position, 

 and in our incapacity to ascertain what changes temperature 

 may produce in the affinities, we are at a loss for an adequate 

 answer. As far, however, as regards the point at issue, this 

 matters not ; for, provided a factitious mineral water contain 

 the same ingredients in a state of solution, and in precisely the 

 same proportions, provided it receive the same temperature 

 and be subjected to the same atmospherical pressure, it must 

 necessarily become subject to the identical laws of mutual at- 

 traction that prevail in a natural spring: for, to whatever 

 theory we may incline, respecting the primary formation of the 

 latter, we are compelled to admit, that in the product, the ori- 

 ginal causes can no longer assume any sway, and that the 

 power of chemical attraction is inherent in matter itself. Uni- 

 formity in the peculiarities of taste, and physical properties in 

 the natural and artificial products, are sufficient to prove this 

 fact. 



It would be altogether misplaced to object here, that che- 

 mistry, whilst presenting us, on the one hand, the ultimate con- 

 stituents of many organised bodies, withholds from us, notwith- 

 standing, the power of accomplishing their reproduction. To 

 such a representation my reply would be, that organic chemis- 

 try is yet in his infancy ; and that we are enabled, in few in- 

 stances, to estimate its quantitative proportions with the same 

 degree of certainty that unorganised bodies admit of Still less 

 are we provided with the means of bringing their elements into 

 so intense a degree of contact with each other, as is attainable 



