44S Account of a Chalyleaie Spring [JuNE/ 



cannot^ I apprehend, but be interesting to the public in general, 

 and to medical men in particular. With this view, therefore, I 

 beg leave to submit to the attention of your readers a short 

 account of a mineral water, which about five years since I acci- 

 dentally discovered on the southern coast of this island. This 

 water, on examination, not only by the taste but by the applica- 

 tion of chemical re-agents, was found to contain sulphate of iron 

 and sulphate of alumina; substances which though rarely met 

 with in combination with water, yet exist in this in such large 

 proportions as to give it a very distinguishing character, and 

 render the other ingredients which enter into its composition 

 wholly imperceptible to the palate. As I have not been able to 

 learn that a^y mineral water of the same class has hitherto been 

 discovered in Europe, possessing such powerful properties as the 

 sand rock spring, I shall take the liberty of transcribing in his 

 own words the result of the several experiments which that very 

 accurate chemist Dr. Marcet has made on this water, in order to 

 determine its component parts, and which he has made the 

 subject of a very valuable paper published in the first volume of 

 the Transactions of the Geological Society of London. It ap- 

 pears from Dr. Marcet's analysis that each pint, or 16 ounce 

 measure, of aluminous chalybeate water^ contains the following 

 ingredients 



Grains, 



Of Carbonic acid gas three-tenths of a cubit inch. 

 Sulphate of irpn in the state of crystallized green 7 



sulphate . . . « 3 



Sulphate of alumina, a quantity of which, ifl 

 brought to the state of crystallized alum, > 31*6 



would amount to j 



Sulphate of lime, dried at 160° 10-1 



Sulphate of magnesia, or Epsom salt crystallized . . 3*6 

 Sulphate of soda, or Glauber's salt crystallized .... 16*0 



Muriate of soda, or common salt crystallized 4"(> 



Silica 07 



107-4 



Dr. Marcet goes on further to state, that he is not acquainted 

 with any chalybeate or aluminous spring in the chemical history 

 of mineral waters that can be compared, in regard to strength^ 

 v/ith that just described. The Hartfell water, in Scotland, and 

 the Harley Green Spaw near Halifax in Yorkshire, both of 

 which appear to be analogous to this in chemical composition, 

 and were considered as the strongest impregnations of the kind, 

 are stated by Dr. Garnett to contain, the one only about 14 

 grains, and the other 40 grains^ of saline matter in each pipt^ 



