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171 
The Mineral Spring at Batheaston. By Capt. Mackay Hertor. 
(Read February 17th, 1875.) 
As far as I can learn, the analysis of this spring has never been 
published before or brought to the notice of any scientific Society ; 
and I believe the first complete analysis of it was that made by 
me in March of last year. Tracing the course of this spring and 
showing its connection with the Bath Mineral Waters may be of 
some interest to the members of this Club. Leaving the King’s 
Bath and travelling east through Grosvenor we pass within a few 
hundred yards of the once celebrated Bladud Spa, about a quarter 
of a century since so renowned for the medicinal qualities of its 
mineral water. Continuing our walk eastward we arrive at 
Batheaston, a village on the right bank of the river Avon, some 
two miles from Bath, from which the spring in question takes its 
name. 
The Batheaston Mineral Water rises through an old deserted 
mine shaft, now covered up, and passes by an underground 
passage about 500 yards when it emerges at the bottom of the 
hill on the grounds of C. E. Broome, Esq., discharging itself into 
the brook, at the rate of some 300 gallons per hour. The water 
when collected was perfectly bright, clear and colourless, and had 
a faint alkaline reaction, which I afterwards discovered to be due 
to the enormously large amount of free ammonia in it. The 
temperature observed at the time of collection was 59° Fahrt., 
while, that of the brook into which it flowed was only 52° Fahrt. 
When reading my paper last year on the Bath Waters, I 
_ purposely omitted to bring to your notice the different processes 
gone through in determining the amount, &c., of the several 
_ constituents, my reason for this omission was to avoid matters of 
- detail of little interest to my hearers. I have often remarked 
_ when looking over the analysis of mineral waters made many 
_ years ago, that no mention was made of the mode in which the 
work was investigated; a glimpse into the treatment of the 
