Analysis of the water of Rio Vinagre. 149 



battery, and is nothing but soft iinmagnetic iron,* wound around with 

 insulated copper wire, a spark was perceived, this season, in the lab- 

 oratory of Yale College, when the armature was forcibly drawn up 

 to the horse shoe, at the instant of the immersion of the battery, and 

 when the magnet easily took up one thousand and four hundred 

 pounds, and even retained it until the battery was nearly out of the 

 acid. It sustained, for a few minutes, from five to six hundred pounds 

 when, after immersion, the acid was entirely whhdrawn. 



The deflagrator of Dr. Hare, (that with one hundred and sixty 

 coils,) readily and vividly ignited charcoal at the distance of one hun- 

 dred feet from the instrument, and when the two charcoal points 

 formed the poles in the middle of a wire of three hundred feet cir- 

 cuit. At the same place, an unmagnetical needle, placed in a helix 

 and connected with the poles at the moment of immersion, became 

 instantly a powerful magnet. 



Art, XV. — Analysis of the water of Rio Vinagre ; by M. Bous- 

 siNGAULT. Translated from the Annales de Chim. et de Phys. 

 Sept. 1832; by Oliver P. Hubbard, Assistant in the Chemical 

 Department in Yale College. 



The waters of the river Pasambio, near Popayan, are acid, and 

 it is therefore called by the natives Rio Vinagre, or river of vinegar. 

 It arises near the craters of the volcano of Purace, at an elevation 

 of about twelve thousand nine hundred feet. The torrent runs to the 

 village of Purace, in a subterranean channel, and at the Chorrera of 

 St. Antonio, where alone it can be conveniently approached, it makes 

 a beautiful cascade of three hundred feet, into a vast amphitheatre, 

 cut in trachyte, and a few miles below, after receiving the torrent of 

 the Anambio, it empties into the Cauca. From the village of Pu- 

 race, the visitor can, without much difficulty, descend to the foot of 

 the Chorrera; but it is painful to remain, On account of the constant 

 shower of acidulous water, which occasions in the eyes an insupport- 

 able prickling. Its width below the falls is seventy two feet ; aver- 

 age depth, four inches ; current, three feet per second. 



The water of the Rio Vinagre is perfectly limpid ; its density 

 1.0015; taste very acid and astringent, indicating an aluminous salt ; 

 reddens litmus speedily, even after being boiled a long time ; with 



* For a full description see vol. xix of this Journal, and vol. ii of the Yale Col- 

 lege Elements of Chemistry. 



