352 OLIVER: MINEEAL SPRINGS OF THE WEST RIDING. 
(h) The variety oj the Harrogate waters. 
In Harrogate that which astonishes all observers is the large 
number of different mineral waters which arise side by side ; in fact, 
in such close proximity that over seventy issues flow from the small 
aggregate area of only four hundred and eighty yards by two 
hundred and thirty ; and, moreover, year by year preserve their 
individuality. This differentiation of the chemical composition of 
the issues, however, does not merely apply to the various wells, but 
even to the bore-holes ;* these diminutive inlets of the mineral 
waters may, therefore, be regarded as miniatures of all the wells. 
Whence all this variety of composition within so limited a 
space ? It is difficult, if not impossible, to form a consistent notion 
of all the several causal conditions that determine this diversity ; I 
say ' several ' because doubtless every separate issue of mineral 
water is the resultant of many causes. In viewing this intricate 
question we must take into account geologic arrangement of pervious 
and impervious strata, which provide separate channels for the 
circulation of water in the shales ; chemical reactions between con- 
stituents contained in the water and those locally distributed ; the 
disposition which solutions of saline matters have to arrange, and to 
maintain themselves at different levels according to density ; and 
various degi-ees of dilution by local currents of supply water. 
J3ut notwithstanding all the individual variations in composition 
there is, I think, clear evidence of the existence of one common 
source — whether the M-ater be sulphuretted or ferruginous. This 
fact is shown mainly by the chemical similarity of the saline con- 
stituents common to all the waters ; for when these are viewed apart 
from the sulphide or iron salt with which the}^ are associated, they 
present a fairly uniform per centage composition — namely, from 
eighty to ninety pei- cent, of Sodium Chloride, small proportions of 
other chlorides and of the carbonates of the alkaline earths ; and 
sulphates are absent from by far the majority of the issues. This 
position is, moreover, corroborated by the detection of Barium in all 
tiie saline waters shortly after the discovery of it, about twenty 
* See the observations of Mr. Hayton Davis on the bore-holes of the Kiss- 
ingen, and of the Chloiide of Iron weils in Lis paper On tlit Mineral Wealth oJ 
J {arrogate. 
