REPORT ON MINERAL AND THERMAL WATERS. 29 



Silesia; Wetzler* in the cold spring of Krumbach, in Bava- 

 ria; and Kastnerf in that of Kissingen, in the same kingdom. 

 The water of Clinton, near New York, is likewise stated to 

 contain five grains of carbonate of ammonia in the gallon ;[. 



It may, indeed, be suspected that this principle is in reality 

 of still more frequent occurrence, and that chemists have often 

 overlooked its presence, in consequence of having driven it off 

 by the heat which, in analysing the water, they had in the first 

 instance applied. 



Now in many of the above instances, I should be disposed to 

 ascribe the occurrence of ammonia to causes of the same de- 

 scription, with those which I suppose to have given rise to it 

 when found issuing from the spiracles of volcanos, especially as 

 it is remarkable that, although the evolution of nitrogen gas 

 and of ammoniacal compoimds in a few rare instances occurs 

 simultaneously, yet for the most part the two in a manner take 

 each other's place, the volatile alkali being abundant in active 

 volcanos, where nitrogen gas is not common, and scanty and un- 

 frequent in the thermal springs of primary countries, where 

 nitrogen gas is so generally disengaged. 



My own views respecting the formation of ammonia in vol- 

 canos are stated in my Memoir on the eruption of Vesuvius in 

 1834, published in the Philosophical Transactions, and will be 

 elsewhere referred to in this Report ; but I sliould be unwilling 

 to extend them beyond the case of those springs which, judging 

 from their temperature, appear connected with volcanic action, 

 and from their purity, or freedom from organic matter, cannot 

 be supposed capable of generating ammonia by any process of 

 animal or vegetable fermentation. 



To these latter causes I should of course refer the presence 

 of ammoniacal compounds in those waters, which, from their 

 contiguity to large cities, or from their own impure condition, 

 seem to contain in themselves the elements from which the 

 volatile alkali might be generated. 



Whilst speaking of ingredients which may be suspected to 

 arise from the presence of organic matter in springs, I must 

 state, that formic acid is said to have been detected in the waters Formic 

 of Prinzhofen near Staubing§, and at Brunnen near Emkirchen, ^<^"'- 

 four or five leagues from Erlangen II, both in Bavaria; and acetic AceticAcid. 



* Kastner's Archiv, vol. x. t ^Irchiv, vol. xxvi. 



X Silliman's Journal, vol. xviii. 



§ Pattenhofer, in Kastner's //j-cA/i', vol.vii. || Archiv, vol. xxiii. 



