300 BATH WATERS.' 



Earlycxamiaa- white, not by the effusion of a fixt salt, as before, but of 



BaUi^^ t ^^ ^^'^ ' *^ ^^^* *^® ^''^^ ^^^^^ ™^^ dissolve sulphur, but 



not precipitate it. Wherefore if sulphur be con ained 

 in the waters of the Bathe they would be precipitated, 

 not by a purely saline, as formerly, bur an acid salt, and 

 the sulphur so precipitated would discover itself hy a 

 fetid smell, which it doth not do. 



^' To which I add, that an acid salt, or something 

 aluminous, doth seem to predominate in the bathes afore- 

 said, so that they become altogether unfit to dissolve the 

 sulphur. 



*' Moreover, if common sulphur be boyled in those 

 waters they are never tinged with a yellow or sulphurous 

 colour, neither can sulphur by any means be precipi- 

 tated from the decoction, as I have often experimented. 



" And therefore I must admire the famous Willis, in 

 his Treatise of the Heat of the Blood, should affirm, 

 that sulphur boyled in Bathe Water may -be dissolved 

 after the same manner, as if boyled in water of unslack'd 

 lime. 



'^ Now if sulphur seems to be dissolved in the waters 

 aforesaid, the occasion of the mistake, I suppose to be, 

 that the decoction was made in a vessel, in which some 

 jfixt salt had been decocted, so that the solution of the 

 sulphur may be made by some particle of a fixt salt, with 

 which the vessel might be seasoned. 



" Concerning the bathes of Bathe, 'tis the common 

 opinion that silver dipped into thorn is colored yellow, in 

 the same manner as if it were cast into a solution of sul- 

 phur, and hence it is supposed that the Bathes have sul- 

 phur in them ; but experience evinccth the contrary;' 

 for silver put into the Bathe Water becomes not reddish, 

 6t yellow, but rather black. 



'' The mistake may seem to arise from this, that 'tis 

 customary with the Bathe-Guids to tinge and as it were 

 guild over pieces of silver with the salino-sulphurous 

 jnud, or dung, such as is often found in houses of office, 

 and put them off to strangers, for a little profit, as if they 

 were coloured with the Bathe-water. 



*' And here this is to be noted, that a kind of bitumi. 

 JJ0U5 mud, with a small pittance of common sulphur, is 



brought 



