ao8 Ohfervatio7is on the Salt of Bitumen', 



St. Bernard's Well, Broughton, Deddington, Crickle Spa-; 

 Durham, Rippon, Shipton, Keddlcllone, Sutton Bog, &c. 

 &c., have all common fait for their baiis. This dilcoverv 

 of the Hindoos is upwards of two thoufand years old, and 

 far furpaOes all the attempts of modern chemiits to make 

 artificial fulphurated waters '^ : they have perhaps dilcovered 

 the very procefs employed by nature in the formation of 

 them. 



The Arabians and Perfians, and even the Muflulmans in 

 India, have generally confidered fait of bitumen a natural 

 produftion ; and thofe who allow that it is made in the 

 country infift upon two kinds, the one natural and the other 

 artificial, and that the kutcr is only an imitation of the na- 

 tural. The Mahummedans have fuch a contemptible opi- 

 nion of the Hindoos, that they are much more difpofed toi 

 believe it dug out of the earth, or formed from the \Viiter of 

 the Mare Mortuum, than that it is a produdlion of Hindoo 

 chemilby. Some of the chemifts to whom 1 (liowed it in 

 this country were alfo inclined to confider it as a natural pro- 

 du6lion. That it is an artilicial preparation I am perfeftly 

 convinced, from the information of the natives, from having 

 feeu a mafs of the fait in the form of the earthen veflel in 

 which it had been made, and from having fucceeded, in a 

 great meafure, in making it: finally, Mr. Robertfon, the 

 gentleman who collcc^ted and fent it from India, writes, that 

 the fait is manufactured in the neighbourhood of the city of 

 Agra, where it may be had in any quantity. Although I 

 was at coniiderable expenfe with the native chemifts and al- 

 chemifts, yet I mufi: confefs that I never prepared any fait 

 equal to what was to be got in the bazar or market-place. 

 I fliall therefore not defcribe the different procefles performed 

 by my operators. I fliall only remark one part, in which 

 they all agreed, and that was, the igneous fufion of com- 

 moii fait with a very celebrated Hindoo medicine called 

 turp'bullaf, or the three fruits, a name given byway of 



* Even in the gafcojs part, tlie prefent artificial fulphurated waters arc 

 faid to be (Jilfjrtnt. In tlic -report made to the National Inftitiuc of France 

 by ci;iztns Fourcroy, Chaptal, Sec refpeftini; the artificial mineral waters 

 of Mcfi"r>i. Paul and Co., they ol'iervc, othly, finally, " the i'alphurated 

 appeared to tlie co nmittec not fufEcientiy impregnated with i'ulphurated 

 hydrogen gas." 



-J- T'urp'hutla is the atriful of the Arabians and Perfians, and the true 

 and genuine origin of thofe celebrated compofition.s, long retained in the 

 pharmacopeias of Europe under the title of iiypkcra ; a word which feems 

 to have exhaufted the ii)^;enuity of our Icxicograpliers, who, I find, are 

 faft expeliir.g it from their lexicons and diftionaries. It never had any 

 connexion with the Greek word Tfu.f>j, nor the t>jj>h£ia oi ScribonijJ* 

 Largus. 



dlftindlioa 



