PREFACE. 
4 
In the course of an experience of many years in a chemical 
laboratory, the author has had occasion to examine, for one 
purpose or another, a large number of waters. Questions in 
regard to the sanitary quality of a water, its adaptability for 
public city supply, its availability as a boiler water, whether it 
has valuable medicinal qualities, so that it can be used for 
drinking or bathing- purposes, or can be shipped as a com- 
mercial water, are constantly coming up. 
By keeping a careful record of the examinations made through 
a series of years in Kansas, the author has been able to draw 
upon much valuable data in the preparation of these pages. 
As the state has been in the process of development, and 
through one or two ‘‘boom periods,’’ everything that appeared 
to be of prospective value has been investigated. Many pros- 
pect ‘‘borings’’ have been made, especially since gas and oil 
have been found so abundantly in the eastern part of the state. 
By popular subscription, often, wells have been sunk, with the 
avowed purpose of ‘‘finding out what was below us.’’ Some- 
times these have been ‘‘dry holes’’; but often, if they yielded 
nothing else, they have produced a mineral water, which, though 
not always immediately of commercial value, has proved of sci- 
entific interest. 
The chemical analyses thus made have, many of them, been 
qualitative only, but they have been sufficient to show whether 
the waters probably possessed valuable therapeutic qualities. If 
they seemed to be of value, a more complete quantitative 
analysis was usually made. Without paying much attention to 
the marvelous cures ‘‘said to have been accomplished’’ by these 
waters, it was thus possible to obtain some facts as to their 
probable value. Some of the springs and wells discussed in the 
following pages are only ordinary, wholesome waters, though 
they may have acquired a local reputation in the treatment of 
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