Seawater. 173 



ever, erecting any apparatus for this purpose, it was neces- 

 sary to ascertain both the utility and salubrity of the water 

 thus prepared. 



It is well known that Bougainville, Phipps, Homelin, &;c. 

 had employed this water with much success ; but they, like 

 most of the chemists of the last age, did not endeavour to imi- 

 tate the process of nature in all its simphcity, but mixed 

 various substances with the seawater, in order to take away 

 or lessen the effect of the empyxeuma arising from the dis- 

 tillation, and which was so unpleasant to the smell and taste. 

 And it is this which in general renders sailors so averse to it, 

 and excites a prejudice very unfavourable to the salubrity of 

 distilled seawater. One of the great objects to be ascertained 

 was, whether this disagreeable smell and taste was peculiar to 

 seawatet, or arose from the act of distillation. 



In the month of July, last year, the king ordered some ex- 

 periments to be made, upon a large scale, at the three ports of 

 Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon. The instructions given were 

 as follows : That a sufficient quantity of seawater should be 

 distilled to prepare, for the space of a month, bread and other 

 food for a certain number of criminals, who were employed 

 on the works of these ports, and also to supply them with 

 drink, keeping from them during that period every other 

 liquid. Ten or twelve persons at each part voluntarily came 

 forward and offered themselves for the experiment. 



The persons employed by government first distilled a suffi- 

 cient quantity of seawater, without the admixture of any other 

 substance. This produce dissolved soap, dressed vegetables, 

 produced the same appearances, with the aerometer, as that 

 distilled from spring water. There was no difference between 

 the one and the other. But the distilled seawater had always 

 that empyreumatic taste and smell, of which we have before, 

 spoken ; and it was so strong, that the commission at Toulon 

 called it odeur de marine, and odeur de marecage. But this is 

 not peculiar to seawater, for the result of a distillation of fresh 

 water had always the same taste and smell. Neither of these 

 liquids inunediately loses this by being filtered through char^ 



