On Mineral Waters. 73 



It has been questioned whether the ingredients consumed by 

 very copious springs should not in process of time leave such 

 cavities in the interior of the earth, as to occasion chasms on 

 its surface. The following calculation will render apparent the 

 improbability of such an event, and will at the same time serve 

 to show how inexhaustible is the fund of materials which 

 mountainous districts have in store, for the supply of mineral 

 waters. It refers to one of the most abundant springs we 

 possess. 



The quantity of water yielded by the Sprudel fountain at 

 Carlsbad,* through its several mouths, averages per hour, 

 419,200 pounds, therefore, per year, upwards of 3672 millions 

 of pounds. The quantity of oxide of sodium, in the salts of 

 soda, which this mass of water holds in solution, amounts to 

 60,232,59 lbs. 



Now the Donnersberg, a mountain of the Bohemian chain, 

 and constituting an almost perfect cone, consists exclusively of 

 clinkstone, of a specific gravity of 2.575, and whose consti- 

 tuent proportion of soda is 10.1 per cent. Assuming its eleva- 

 tion at 2500 feet, (although it is in reality higher) and the 

 inclination of its sides, towards the horizon, only at 45 degrees, 

 it follows that this single mountain contains a quantity of soda 

 sufficient for the supply of the Sprudel, during a period of 



♦ These celebrated springs are situated in Bohemia, and were originally dis- 

 covered by the Emperor Charles IV., whilst engaged in the pleasures of the chase. 

 Being attracted into the rocky glen, where they rise, by the howlini? of one of his 

 hounds, he perceived the animal struggling in the hot well, into which it had fallen 

 whilst in pursuit of a stag. This occurred in the November of 1344, the year of the 

 memorable battle of Cressi, wherein the Emperor had been wounded in the thigh, 

 whilst fighting under the banners of Philip II. of France. Charles was subsequently 

 induced by his physician, Peter Baier, to try the recently discovered waters for a 

 })rotracted evil, arising out of his wound, and from the success attending their use, 

 the springs were named after this Prince. 



The origin of these wells must have taken place at an extremely remote period. 

 Professor Berzelius assumes it to have been coeval with the violent revolutions in 

 nature, by which the valley of Carlsbad was created ; which hypothesis is strongly 

 supported by the circumstance, that the covering of the subterraneous reservoir 

 (called there the kettle) of the Sprudel-fountain, composes, for a considerable extent, 

 the actual bed of the river Tepel, and must, therefore, have existed before the valley 

 was excavated to its present depth by the river. The lid, as it were, of this boiler, 

 in some places eight feet in thickness, is composed of the earths precipitated from 

 the water. It represents a lime-stone of the hardness of marble, assumes a polish, 

 and consists of parallel strata, varying in every shade, from dark brown to yellow and 

 white. Over this lid, which is of considerable extent, the greater part of the town 

 of Carlsbad is built, and the water issues forth through several openings, which it is 

 found requisite to widen, from time to time, by boring, to prevent the dangerous 

 consequences of an explosion of the lid. 



