9i On Mineral. Waters, 



35,000 years ; and yet this mountain is inconsiderable in size, 

 compared with others of Northern Bohemia, and these, con- 

 sisting of chnkstone, basalt, or other rocky substances, more 

 or less rich in soda. Nor would the aggregate solid contents 

 of the Sprudel, supposing the latter to have flowed, in its pre- 

 sent ratio, for the last 7000 years, that is to say, from the re- 

 motest era of history downwards, occupy so enormous a cubical 

 extent as might be imagined : for the entire quantity of its 

 salts, thus amounting to 70,175,589 tons, and their specific 

 gravity being 2.279, would not constitute a cube of more than 

 996 feet. Surely a space like this is a mere bubble in the 

 interior of the globe ; and, ere we expect the earth to give way, 

 let us remember that when a fossil becomes decomposed, its 

 volume is often simultaneously increased by a change in its 

 aggregate form. 



If we reflect on the foregoing, together with many other phe- 

 nomena, such as the connexion obtaining between some springs 

 and the affluent atmospherical water, we cannot help subscrib- 

 ing to the opinion, long entertained by chemists, that the 

 formation of mineral waters is a simple process of solution, 

 subject, therefore, to the established laws of chemical affinity. 

 Their variety, consequently, depends on the different nature of 

 the strata through which they flow, — upon the relative quantity 

 of water and gas acting upon these strata, — and upon the 

 various degrees of temperature that are enlisted in the process. 



Another argument opposed to factitious mineral waters is, 

 that although chemical analysis has the power of ascertaining 

 the acids and bases, still it is not possessed of the means of 

 determining in what combinations they are united in a mineral 

 spring. That the actual combinations differ from those of our 

 analytical results, is certain ; and as the effects of the waters 

 on the human frame do not satisfactorily correspond with the 

 latter, Dr. Murray has been led to conclude that the elements 

 in a mineral water unite under the form of the most readily 

 soluble salts. The Doctor contrived this theory chiefly with a 

 view to account for the effects of the Dunblane waters : but 

 the results of his own chemical investigations, and the effects 

 of mineral waters, in general, are far more clearly elucidated 

 in the theory which Berthollet has so ably conceived, and 



