278 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Aug. 



(§ 64). This amount, if represented as chlorid of potassium, is 

 equal to 1.963, or to 11.46 per cent of the alkalies calculated as 

 chlorids. The amount of potassium salt in this water is consequently 

 about forty times greater than in that of St. Ours. 



The fact of special importance as regards the alkaline metals 

 in the waters whose analyses we have given in this paper is the 

 very small amount of potassium in the strongly saline muriated 

 waters of the first three classes, which we conceive to be more or 

 less directly derived from the waters of the ancient ocean. To this 

 primeval sea, almost destitute of potassium, the process of mineral 

 decay has been for ages adding potash salts, and despite the partial 

 elimination of these by vegetation (§ 5), and by the formation of 

 glauconite, we find a notable proportion of potash in the waters 

 of the modern ocean. 



In the analyses of the saline waters here given lithia was sought 

 for in a few instances, and was detected in the waters of Varennes. 

 Most of these analyses were made before the discovery of the 

 new metals caesium and rubidium. 



§ 54. Salts of Calcium and Magnesium. — We have to 

 consider under this head the relations both of the chlorids and 

 the carbonates of these bases. The bitter saline waters of the 

 first class, although containing large quantities of chlorids of 

 calcium and magnesium, are, as we have seen, generally destitute 

 of earthy carbonates. These latter, however, are found in small 

 quantities in the alkaline waters of the fourth class, and in some- 

 what larger amounts in those intermediate waters which form 

 classes II and III, and are apparently formed by admixtures of 

 the two classes previously mentioned. Besides the carbonates of 

 lime and magnesia which the waters of the fourth class hold in 

 solution, the carbonate of soda which they contain gives rise, by 

 its re-action with the chlorids of calcium and magnesium, to 

 additional quantities of the carbonates of these bases. In the 

 Waters of Kingston, (§ 36), a large amount of chlorid of calcium 

 is associated with earthy carbonates, and these waters thus offer 

 a passage from the first to the second class. 



In most of the waters of the second class, as will be seen from 

 the table § 42, there appears but a small amount of chlorid of 

 calcium ; and even this depends upon the manner in which the 

 analysis has been conducted. We may suppose in the recent water 

 such a partition of bases between the chlorine and the carbonic acid 

 that chlorid of calcium, chlorid of magnesium, bicarbonate of lime 



