190 Examinations of Mineral Waters. [No. 3. 



Examination of three specimens of Bengal Mineral Waters. By 

 Henry Piddington, Curator Museum Economic Geology. 



These waters have all been sent in much too small a quantity to 

 enable me to make any very correct quantitative analysis, and above 

 all we cannot from small quantities pronounce on the presence or 

 absence of Iodine or Bromine to which in minute quantities, so many 

 mineral waters are now known to owe their efficacy. For a per- 

 fectly satisfactory analysis we require at least 2-§- or 3 dozen quart 

 bottles, which would give us 5 or 6 gallons of the water. The 

 bottles should be perfectly clean and well rinsed out with the water 

 of the spring before filling, and the corks (new ones) soaked in the 

 water of the spring and well beaten in. 



No. I. 



Darjiling Mineral Water from the Minchu Spring, 

 from B. H. Hodgson, Esq., C. S. 



Two bottles of this water reached me ; one (A) was a dark green 

 glass (English) and the other (B) a white French glass bottle. The 

 cork of the first was a very bad one, but that of the second was excel- 

 lent, and it had been so well corked, that it took the strength of two 

 men to pull, one at the bottle and the other at the corkscrew, to 

 open it. The water of the first bottle had evidently decomposed. 

 That of the second though quite limpid when opened and re-corked 

 (to take a small quantity of the water for testing) began in two or 

 three days to grow turbid, and gradually threw down its iron, some 

 of it cohering in fine flaky webs of a pale yellow colour (carbonate 

 of the protoxide) ; and it took eight or ten days before it again 

 became tolerably clear, in which time some of the deposit reddened 

 considerably. When the whole was filtered it left a chocolate brown 

 deposit on the filter. 



1. The water of both bottles had a very slight smoky taste. 



2. A yellowish tinge was perceptible in (A), which was also a 

 little turbid. 



3. The cork of (A) was blackened and there was a faint smell of 

 sulphuretted hydrogen but perfectly distinct. In (B) the smell of 



