Mr. R. Warington on Artificial Sea Water. 419 



XL. — On Artificial Sea Water. 

 By Robert Warington, Esq. 



To the Editors of the Annals of Natural History. 



Gentlemen, 



In the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History ' for July last, 

 you published a short communication from Mr. Gosse, on the 

 artificial formation of sea water, and having lately had my atten- 

 tion especially directed to this paper by a friend who wished to 

 put the formula given into practice, I was surprised at the dif- 

 ference in the proportions of the ingredients as compared with 

 what I had myself employed in the course of 1853, more par- 

 ticularly from the circumstance, that when Mr. Gosse called 

 upon me in January last, and consulted me on the feasibility of 

 the plan, I told him that there could be no difficulty in the 

 matter, as I had made and had then in use several small quan- 

 tities artificially produced, and that all that was required was 

 that a good analysis should be taken as the basis for deducing 

 the proportions, and at the same time referred him to the source 

 from which I myself had worked, namely Dr. E. Schweitzer's 

 analysis of the water of the English Channel taken off Brighton. 

 Now, as numerous parties have been inquiring respecting this 

 subject, and the erroneous formula has been copied into other 

 journals, it may prevent much annoyance as well as disappoint- 

 ment if this matter is set right. The error appears to be two- 

 fold, the one arising from miscalculation, the other from assu- 

 ming that the sulphate of magnesia as given in the analysis, 

 represented the ordinary crystallized salt, and not the anhydrous 

 sulphate, which is always the case in giving analytical results, 

 and which is, indeed, so specified by Dr. Schweitzer in his paper, 

 when he states that the dry residue obtained by the evaporation 

 of 1000 grains of water amounts to 35*25628 grs., consisting of 

 the following: ingredients : — 



Chloride of sodium 



„ of magnesium 



„ of potassium 

 Bromide of magnesium 

 Sulphate of magnesia 

 Carbonate of lime . 

 Sulphate of lime 



Now, as these results all stand in the same denomination, grains, 

 it is competent for us to treat them as pounds, ounces, or any 

 other weight that may best suit our purpose, and as the decimal 



27* 



27-05948 grains. 



3-66658 „ 



0-76552 „ 



0-02929 „ 



2-29578 „ 



0-03301 „ 



1-40662 .. 



