Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 73 



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with the Tuscan lagoons, and the name of Mount Cerberus accords 

 well with the poetical and mythological ideas of the early people of 

 Italy. 



Even as late as the 1 8th century the lagoons were regarded only 

 as a supernatural wonder which excited astonishment rather than 

 courted investigation. Under the Grand Duke Leopold I., the 

 chemist Hcefer discovered by analysis, that they contained boracic 

 acid. This discovery, followed by further explorations, has bestowed 

 upon the lagoons an unrivalled industrial importance, and has brought 

 into the countries possessing them an activity contrasting strikingly 

 with the miserable state in which they before languished. It is a 

 curious fact in their history that before the discover of this acid, 

 the foetid odour developed by the sulphuretted hydrogen gas, — the 

 certain death which met the man who fell into the scalding baths, — 

 the disruptions of the ground occasioned by the appearance of new 

 Soffioni, — and above all the superstitious terror with regard to them, 

 had made the people consider the lagoons as a scourge from which 

 they sought deliverance by public prayers ; but now, if by any cause 

 the Fiimacchi, the source of common prosperity, should become ex- 

 tinguished, they would not fail to seek from heaven a restoration of 

 this scourge, which in the skilful hands of M. Larderel, has become, 

 to quote M. Bowring, a source perhaps of greater riches than the 

 mines of Peru or of Mexico, and certainly more reliable. After the 

 discovery of Hcefer, Paul Mascagni, a noted chemist, had the first 

 idea of procuring from the lagoons boracic acid like that of China, 

 and of thus restoring to Europe the tribute that she had paid to 

 Asia. But the attempt was not at first profitable, as the waters con- 

 tain in solution at the moment of their escape from the earth, only 

 an insignificant quantity of boracic acid. Another chemist having 

 observed that a part of the acid was thrown beyond the lagoon, by 

 the violence of the vapours, and that it was scattered on the mar- 

 gins of the craters, and moreover being confident that the waters 

 were capable of dissolving a greater quantity of acid, endeavoured 

 to find means of saturating them by constructing upon the declivi- 

 ties of the country artificial lakes fed by the streams from the moun- 

 tain. The vapours which issue from these lakes keep their waters 

 constantly at a boiling temperature. After impregnation for twenty 

 or thirty hours by the vapours of the highest lake, they draw off the 

 waters into the second lake to submit them to a new impregnation. 

 From thence they are drawn into a third, and so on till they reach 

 the receptacle at the lowest point. In their passage across six or 

 eight lakes, they are charged with half per cent, of boracic acid. 

 They are then led into the reservoir from which they are conducted 

 into lead reservoirs for evaporation, to produce concentration ; and 

 to hasten that operation, the happy idea was proposed of substi- 

 tuting for the combustibles sometimes used, and which were enor- 

 mously expensive, the direct application of the heat of the Soffioni. 

 This improvement decided the success of the enterprise, It is sur- 

 prising that it was introduced at so late a day, since this method 

 was not new and had been long practised at the solfatara of Poz- 

 zuoli in extracting alum from the earth that contains it. In the 

 lagoons, the hot vapours for carrying on the evaporation are taken 



