BURTON WATERS—DRINKING AND BREWING. 9 
are sure to be hard water springs; or, if the water supply 
come from the coal measures it may be so acid from the 
decomposition of iron pyrites as to be undrinkable, or from 
the solution of other salts found in these measures, it may 
be saline and equally unpalatable. I may here refer to the 
brine water in the Old Bath pit at Moira, and a salt 
spring, tapped by Messrs. Nadin & Co., in their colliery, 
which contained over 4,000 grains of salt in the gallon, or 
more than twice as much as the Atlantic Ocean water 
contains. 
I think it will be evident to most of you that with the 
bases and acids that I have named, a large number of 
combinations and resulting salts may be obtained, 
Carbonates - -\ of Lime, Magnesia, Tron, 
Sulphates - -;Manganse, Alumina, 
Chlorides and Nitrates Sodium and Potassium, 
all occurring more or less frequently in ordinary good 
drinking-water; and _ their presence in reasonable quantity 
can in no way be considered as making a water injurious; 
you will, however, specially note that I say in reasonable 
quantity, and although some of our Burton waters containing 
excessive quantities of gypsum and other salts are used for 
drinking purposes, and so far as we know can be included 
in my definition, they are certainly not to be considered as 
the most desirable form of drinking-water, and they are 
Practically useless for such domestic purposes as washing, 
whereas, for the manufacture of beer, they are pre- 
eminently suitable. 
I may now mention some of those substances occasionally 
found in what is believed to be good drinking-water, and 
foremost must name those bodies which result from organic 
contamination—ammoniacal salts, nitrogenous organic 
matter yielding the so called albuminoid ammonia, 
chlorides and phosphates. If I were to enter into the 
question of the quantities of these substances which render 
