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Art. XI. Some Hints on a Mode of procuring Soft Water 
at Tunbridge Wells, and on the Danger of the improper Use 
of its Mineral Springs ; with Incidental Observations on 
Lead. By G. D. Yeats, M.D., F.R.S., Fellow of the 
Royal College of Physicians ; in a Letter to the Editor. 
Dear Sir, 
Ir has always been a complaint of the visitors to that beautiful 
watering-place, Tunbridge Wells, that they have found it ex- 
tremely difficult and troublesome to procure good and pure 
water for various domestic purposes. In addition also to the 
comforts and advantages which would be derived from the 
possession of soft water for household uses, for it is the hard- 
ness of the water which is complained of, it is a matter of con- 
siderable consequence to many invalids who resort to the Wells 
for the balminess and salubrity of its air, and for the beauty of 
its scenery, to be able easily to procure a water free from 
some saline impregnations which give it qualities noxious to them 
on account of the complaints under which they may labour. It is 
very generally known to the public that the salutary effects of 
the mineral springs at the Wells, for the benefit of which the 
majority of invalids resort thither, are owing to iron, which 
exists in the form of a carbonate; but as very many invalids 
also make a summer visit to this delightful spot, in whose 
complaints a water with chalybeate properties is not only 
useless, but positively injurious ; and as almost all the common 
water which is used there, as far as J know, is more or less im- 
pregnated with iron, it becomes a matter of great moment, in 
all points of view for domestic purposes, to procure it free from 
this active and salutary, but when improperly used in certain 
conditions of disease, dangerous mineral. Upon sinking a well 
on some property which I have recently purchased at Tunbridge 
Wells for a supply of water to the house, I was told by some of 
the residenters, and I was apprehensive that it would be the case 
from what I knew of the qualities of the water generally and of 
the mineral nature of the country, that the water would be very 
hard and chalybeate, and therefore unfit for some domestic 
