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VI. A Contribution to the History of the Old Sulphur Well, 

 Harrogate. By T. E. Thokpe, Ph.D., F.R.S., Professor of 

 Chemistry in the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds*. 



EDMUND DEAN, " Doctor in Physick, Oxon., dwelling 

 in York," first drew public attention to the virtues of 

 this famous spring, in his Spandarine Anglica, published in 

 1626. 



"The waters of this sulphureous fountain," he says, "are 

 very cold, and have no manifest heat, because their mines and 

 veins of brimstone are not kindled under the earth, being 

 hindered from the mixture of salt therewith." We are further 

 told that although such as drank the water verily believed 

 there was gunpowder in it, there could be little doubt of its 

 efficacy against "reef and fellon," " morphew, tettars and the 

 like." Its attributes are more fully set forth by Dr. Michael 

 Stanhope in his ' Cures without Care, being a Summons to all 

 such as find little or no keep by the use of Physick, to repair 

 to the Northern Spaw, &c.,' published in 1632 ; and since that 

 time the merits of " its most foetidly salutory vapours " (to use 

 Pennant's phase) have been repeatedly extolled. Although 

 it came into use some time after the chalybeate springs in 

 the neighbourhood, it would seem that when trials of its 

 virtues came to be made, the well speedily acquired the pre- 

 eminence which it now enjoys. Dr. Short, so far back as 

 1734, described the "stone-basin enclosed in a small neat 

 building of stone and lime, about a yard square on the inside 

 and nearly two yards high, covered over with two thick 

 smooth flagstones," which still remains under the present 

 pump-room. 



The strongly marked character of the water, its regular 

 flow, and the apparent uniformity of its composition, together 

 with its undoubted therapeutic action, must have made it an 

 object of curiosity even in very early times ; and doubtless 

 many trials were made to gain an insight into its nature. 

 The first attempt at its quantitative analysis, of which any 

 record has been preserved, was made by Dr. Higgins in 1780 ; 

 he thus stated his results : — 



oz. d. grs. 

 "A Winchester gallon of Harrogate 1 



water contains of calcareous earth I 1 12^ 

 saturated with acidulous gas . . J 



Marine salt of magnesia 



Sea-salt 



Bead before the Priestley Club, Leeds 



4 23J 



1 7 12i 



1 14 



Communicated by the Author. 



