144 WATER ANALYSIS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 



confirm the opinion universally received and proved by all preceding 

 experiments, that this water is principally impregnated with sulphur 

 and the native alkaline salt or natron with which almost all the 

 mineral waters in France so plentifully abound, and which many 

 affirm to be the true nitre of the antients. This natron, some 

 are of opinion, bears a nearer affinity to sal ammoniac than to 

 saltpetre." 



The author's chemistry, however, must not be too severely 

 criticised, nor too much expected of him when in the same field 

 such scientific luminaries as Short, Shaw, Boyle, and Hoffmann 

 had confessedly failed. 



The inherent virtues of mineral waters are not to be explained 

 must probably ever remain involved in doubt and obscurity. The 

 writer must therefore be commended for the next very sensible 

 observation : " It is not to be doubted but that the greater part of 

 mineral waters most assuredly contain certain inherent principles 

 from which their virtues derive their source respectively, which 

 are not to be ascertained by any experiments whatever \ they are 

 placed infinitely too far beyond our reach, the imperfections of 

 human nature utterly precluding us from the power of considering 

 them as the objects of sense." 



" Thus, for instance, with respect to the inherent specific pro- 

 perties of the Nottington water now under consideration. Who is 

 able to ascertain positively to which particular quality of it its 

 acknowledged healing virtue is indebted 1 Is it owing to its sul- 

 phureous acid ? to its alkaline salt ? to a due combination of both, 

 co-existing in this salutary spring? or perhaps, after all, to some 

 active principle in the elementary water itself, not cognisable by 

 the organs of our senses 1 " It is only fair to say with regard to 

 this statement that it very well expresses the opinion of the best 

 chemists of the present day who, notwithstanding the refinements 

 introduced into the art of water-analysis by such men as Frank- 

 land, Wanklyn, Tidy, and others, are free to confess that they are 

 quite unable to account for all, or nearly all, the qualities observable 

 in either potable or medicinal waters. 



