4°6 KALM'S ENGLAND. 



water to horses or cattle, because it is very salt, as the 

 Floodtide, Ploden, refluxus maris, brings up salt water 

 from the sea, and if the horses and cattle drink of this, 

 it is said to make them ill. Although this is a dry 

 summer, it has never been remarked that the water has 

 diminished in this well. I asked whether the people who 

 drank of it felt well after it ? They answered that better 

 water cannot be than this, and that they never feel 

 ill from it, or are in any way subject to illnesses more 

 than other people. I now drank freely enough of it, 

 without experiencing the least inconvenience afterwards. 

 I have also during the whole of my visit [T. II. p. 50] to 

 Gravesend, as well as elsewhere in England, never 

 experienced in the least degree such an effect as some 

 ascribe to the chalk water, kritvatnet, viz., that one 

 unaccustomed to it will at first have diarrhoea until he 

 becomes used to it. Most, and probably all the wells in 

 Gravesend are dug in the bare hard chalk ; so that the 

 water which I drank at meal-times and when I was 

 thirsty the whole time I was there, was no other than 

 that which had filtered through the chalk, silat sig 

 genom Kritan, but I have not noticed the least 

 change in the body in consequence. 



The U J^, I748- 

 Strata Terra. On the south side of the Windmill 

 Hill, Vaderqvarns backen, which lay near Gravesend, 

 was a large pit from which they took sand. Here we 

 saw what the hill on the south side consisted of, and 

 measured the strata, which were as follows, beginning at 



the top : — Ft. ins. 



1. Svartmylla, soil 1 



2. Soil and a fine sand mingled together. These 

 together produced a yellow colour 1 o 



3. A light-grey fine sand. In it were here and 

 there ochre or rust-spots 1 6 



