Reference to the Supply of Large Toivns. 



309 



with those contained in food, aid in the development of 

 the bony skeletons of animals. (Pelouze et Fremy Traite de 

 Chimie 1860, torn. 1, 234). 



Some calcareous waters such as Carrara water, are 

 usefully employed in medicine (Brande and Taylor). The 

 search after non-calcareous water therefore is based on 

 a fallac} 7 . If lime were not freely taken in our daily 

 food, either in solids or liquids, the bones would be desti- 

 tute of the proper amount of mineral matter for their 

 natural development. 



I remark upon this subject with due hesitancy, for a 

 chemical report made during the last year, and which has 

 the sanction of the Board of Water Commissioners, (being 

 published in their annual report,) speaks of the " salts of 

 lime " as the " objectionable " ones. 1 



In all natural phenomena such as these which are for a 

 few minutes before us, some great end is subserved. "We 

 are not always able to see the reason but in this case 

 the utility of the change is manifest. Salt is the great 

 antiseptic. In the water as in the air it is nature's sca- 

 venger ; while impregnated with it, the ocean retains its 

 purity, — instead of becoming a festering pool of organic 

 decay, poisoning the air and the land with its breath, — and 

 the winds which breathe its odors and whip from the top 

 of curling waves the very water itself, carry with them no 

 miasma but rather health and life. 



There is one property of water which it seems proper 

 at this time to notice and in this connection. I said in 

 my almost opening remark, that when condensed from 

 vapor under circumstances which were favorable to its 

 greatest purity, it always retained a large proportion of 

 atmospheric air. This property of absorbing gas is due 



1 The same .authority decides the Albany water proven to be healthy by 

 a qualitative analysis, which determined a half dozen saline constituents 

 and some organic matter — amount not estimated. 



\_Trans. v.~\ 40 



