REPORT ON MINERAL AND THERMAL WATERS. 23 



nute examination of the sprudelstein, the deposit from the waters, 

 that Berzelius was able to detect its presence, whilst in the 

 water itself much carbonate of soda, but no potass, was discer- 

 nible. 



2. That the detection of potass in the Swedish mineral waters 

 only increases the difficulty of explaining, why springs, vshich, 

 like those of Carlsbad, rise also from granite, contain so very 

 small a quantity of the so-called vegetable alkali, whilst they 

 are thus strongly impregnated with the mineral one. 



3. That the alkaline springs alluded to ought to be shown 

 to proceed uniformly from a rock containing albite, before any 

 legitimate inference can be deduced from the alleged difference, 

 as to the facility of disintegration, between this and other kinds 

 of granite. 



4. That although it is conceivable that one alkali may have 

 been mistaken for the other by the older analysts, it can hardly 

 be suspected that chemists like Berzelius, or even Anglada, 

 could have been guilty of such an error with respect to the 

 springs they had examined. 



5. That although none of the thermal springs of the Alps, 

 with the exception of Yverdun, are represented as containing 

 natron, yet all of them are fraught with other salts of soda, and 

 some of them with salts of potass, so that probably the earthy 

 matter present existed in the water in the state of a muriate or 

 a sulphate, whilst the carbonic acid, together with which they 

 were thrown down on boiling, was united in the water with a 

 portion of that soda, which the analyst represents as being 

 combined with some other acid. 



Thus the composition of the water of Baden, in the canton 

 of Argau, is stated by Bauhof as follows : 

 In 300 ounces of the water. 



Carbonic acid 48 cubic inches. 



Sulphuretted hydrogen .... traces. 



Sulphate of lime 233 grains. 



Muriate of soda 186 „ 



Muriate of magnesia .... 51 „ 



Sulphate of soda 48 „ 



Lime 36 „ 



Sulphate of magnesia .... 31 „ 



Magnesia 11 „ 



Extractive matter 3 „ 



Oxide of iron 1 a? 



Now doubtless Bauhoff here meant to express, that the 

 lime and magnesia were thrown down combined with the cai*- 



