2a6 SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



The water was colourless and transparent, except a small degree 

 of imiddiness, obviously owing to a cork-stopper. At the bottom 

 of the flasks lay a single cubic crystal, which had again begun to 

 re-dissolve. The taste of the water was bitter, saltish, and sharp. 

 Its specific gravity was 1'245. 



Five hundred grains of this water, evaporated to dryness and 

 left upon a sand-bath till they no longer lost any weight, gave as a 

 residue 213 grains of dry salt. This salt, while still warm, was di- 

 gested with five times its weight of alcohol. After it had been 

 allowed to exert its whole solvent power, by being left in a mode- 

 rately warm place, and by freqaent agitation, the alcohol was de- 

 eanted off, and the undissolved salt treated again in the same manner 

 with half the quantity of alcohol. 



The alcohol was evaporated, and the residual dry salt wa again 

 treated with alcohol ; but o:ily with a quantity sufficient to take up 

 the most soluble salts, and to separate a portion of common salt 

 which had been dissolved along with them by the alcohol in the 

 first process. The alcohol, being evaporated, left behind 171- grains 

 of a salt mass, consisting ot a mixture of muriate of magnesia and 

 muriate of lime. 



To determine the proportions of these twrt salts, the mass was 

 dissolved in water, and precipitaled while boiling by carbonate of 

 soda. The edulcorated precipitate was mixed with water, saturated 

 \yith sulphuric acid, and the liquor was evaporated to dryness. By 

 washing the dry mass with a little water, the sulphate of magnesia 

 was separated from the sulphate of lime, and the magnesia was pre- 

 cipitated at a boiling temperature by carbonate of soda. The preci- 

 pitated magnesia, which when edulcorated and dried weighed 7^ 

 grains, was neutralized with muriatic acid, and the solution evapo- 

 rated to dry ness. The muriate of magnesia, thus restored, was 

 found to weigh, while still warm, 121 grains. By subtracting this 

 quantity from the original 1/9 grains, we obtain 53 grains as the 

 weight of the muriate of lime, 



The muriate of soda, freed by means of alcohol from the salts 

 soluble in that liquid, weighed, after being well dried, 38 grains* 

 But we may reckon 39 grains, the grain of difference wanting to 

 make up the sum total of the salts, being obviously owing to the 

 greater degree of dryness given in the last processes than in the 

 first. The muriate of soda was dissolved in water, and tried with 



