Sea-water. 178 
ever, erecting any apparatus for this purpose, it was necessa- 
ry to ascertain both the utility and salubrity of the water thus 
prepared. 
It is well known that Bougainville, Phipps, Homelin, &c. 
had employed this water with much success; but they, like 
most of the chemists of the last age, did not endeavour to imi- 
tate the process of nature in all iis simplicity, but mixed vari- 
ous substances with the sea-water, in order to take away or les- 
sen the effect of the empyreuma arising from the distillation, 
and which was so unpleasant to the smell and taste. And it is 
this which in general renders sailors so averse to it, and excites 
a prejudice very unfavourable to the salubrity of distilled sea- 
water. One of the great objects to be ascertained was, whether 
this disagreeable smell and taste was peculiar to sea-water, ov 
arose from the act of distillation. 
In the month of July, last year, the king ordered some ex- 
periments to be made, upon a large scale, at thé three ports of 
Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon. The instructions given, were 
as follows: That a sufficient quantity of sea-water should be 
distilled to prepare, for the space of a month, bread and other 
food for a certain number of criminals, who were employed on 
the works of these ports, and also to supply them with drink, 
keeping from them during that period every other liquid. Ten 
or twelve persons at each port voluntarily came forward and 
offered themselves for experiment. 
The persons employed by government first distilled a suffi- 
cient quantity of sea-water, without the admixture of any other 
substance. This produce dissolved soap, dressed vegetables, and 
Produced the same appearances, with the serometer, as that 
distilled from spring water. There was no difference between 
the one and the other. But the distilled sea-water had always 
that empyreumatic taste and smell, of which we have before 
Spoken ; and it was so strong, that the commission at Toulon 
called it odeur de marine, and odeur de marecage. But this is 
hot peculiar to sea-water, for the result of a distillation of fresh 
Water had always the same taste and smell. Neither of these 
‘iquids immediately loses this by being filtered through char- 
