Chalybeate water

“ There are also a number of mineral springs, only three of which are known to foreigners—the chalybeate waters of Évian and Amphion, close to each other on the south shore of the Lake of Geneva, and the chalybeate and sulphurous waters of St Gervais, at the north-west end of the chain of Mont Blanc. ”

“ The springs supply hot and cold water at a very short distance from each other, flowing at the rate of 60 gallons a minute. The former possesses a uniform temperature of 82° Fahr., and the principal substances in solution are bicarbonate of calcium, bicarbonate of magnesium, chloride of sodium, chloride of magnesium and silica acid. There is also a chalybeate spring known as St Anne’s well, situated at the S.W. corner of the Crescent, the water of which when mixed with that of the other springs proves purgative. ”

“ The sensible effects produced by this water, when first taken into the stomach, are, generally, a degree of drowsiness, and sometimes head-ach; which, however, dissipate spontaneously, before it operates on the bowels. A moderate dose acts speedily as a cathartic, causes no griping, and leaves no languor: for this reason, and likewise on account of the salutary operation of the chalybeate, and, perhaps, of the carbonic acid, or fixed air, Cheltenham water may, as Dr. ”

“ The merits and uses of the chalybeate and other waters are easily discovered locally, and no one who remembers the oft-repeated epitaph of the individual who with three daughters 'died from drinking the Cheltenham waters' should be prejudiced against their good properties, which for certain ailments are not to be despised. ”

“ Yet other chalybeat waters lose this quality by much less degree of heat.
As there is an ochrous earth separated from all steel waters, when exposed to the air, which subsides [124] to the bottom, and a metalline scum or cremor, which swim on their surface; we shall next consider the appearances, which they make in this water.
Exp. 8. A solution of saccharum Saturni being dropt into common spring-water, left the upper parts of the water clear and colourless, but formed a lactescency towards the bottom. ”

“ The chalybeate bath requires caution and attention, as well as the drinking of the waters. Although much of the iron is lost by the escape of the carbonic acid gas, still the corrugation, redness, and roughness of [182] the skin produced by immersion in the chalybeate bath indicate a powerful agency, and when lassitude, drowsiness, head-ache, or sense of exhaustion follow the bath, the patient should be on his guard, and either desist, or report to the bath physician. ”

“ Some of the weakest of them gives only a red or faint purple tincture, and the strongest only a deep purple: but I never saw or heard of any chalybeat water, but this, either in [123] Scotland or elsewhere, that afforded an intense black and inky colour with galls. From which, I think we may venture to conclude, that the water of this Spaw contains a far larger proportion of iron than most, or perhaps than any, other chalybeat water hitherto discovered: and for this reason, I dare say, it will likewise be so much the more preferable to most others in medicinal virtues ”

“ I believe it will appear from these observations, that this mineral water continues longer intire, and particularly that it retains the quality of tinging with galls longer, than most others of the chalybeat kind: at least, of a great number, which I have seen described, I do not remember one, that retains it near so long, when exposed to the open air. Many of them lose this quality intirely in a few hours; and it is greatly impaired in the same time, even in those which retain it longest. ”

“ Continuous solution of soils beneath the sea gives rise to the formation of great lakes of saturated water, in which occurs the development of much marine vegetation. On the evaporation of this water, due to geologic isolation, the decomposition of nitrogenous organic matter causes generation of nitric acid, which, coming in contact with the calcareous rocks, attacks them, forming calcium nitrate, which, in presence of sodium sulfate, gives rise to a double decomposition into sodium nitrate and calcium sulfate. ”

“ A calcarious earth deprived of its air, or in the state of quick-lime, greedily absorbs a considerable quantity of water, becomes soluble in that fluid, and is then said to be slaked; but as soon as it meets with fixed air, it is supposed to quit the water and join itself to the air, for which it has a superior attraction, and is therefore restored to its first state of mildness and insolubility in water. ”

“ Those who have written upon their virtues assert, and with seeming propriety, that where they deposit an ochreous sediment, they are certainly dispossessed of their steely virtues; for ochre being no other than the calx of iron, such a residue evinces the evaporation of the more eminent properties of the chalybeate, by the phlogiston of the mineral escaping by its extreme volatility. Every metal deprived of this igneous principle is immediately reduced to a calx, and thus deprived of its splendour, fusibility, and other properties, until restored again by the readmission of its phlogiston. ”

“ The women who are employed at the salt-works collect, at the ebb tide, the earth which is most impregnated with salt, and make heaps of it. After this first operation, they make large vessels or jars, of the earth mixed with straw, and pour into them water, which, in filtering through the earth, carries off all the saline particles. This water is afterwards poured into large coppers, in which it is boiled till nothing remains but the salt. Being collected into heaps, it is then sold to the inhabitants of Kakondy, who have a great market for it in the Fouta. ”

“ Now if a gold-fish globe be not over-crowded with fishes we have only to throw in a goodly handful of some water weed—such as the Callitriche, for instance—and a new set of chemical operations commences at once, and it becomes unnecessary to change the water. ”

“ It is worthy of remark that in almost all the specimens of chalcedony which appear to contain aquatic confervæ, not only the vegetable structure is perfectly preserved, but the plant, however light and yielding its texture, is disposed in as free a manner as if still living and floating in the water which was its native element. ”

“ While if the land be so water-logged that the level at which water can be obtained by digging is brought near to the surface, the water containing salts from below is drawn upwards by means of capillary attraction, and once more evaporation takes place, leaving the salts in the soil. ”

“ Another difficulty which desert plants have to contend with is this: continual evaporation from off the land of water charged with mineral salts—in some regions in bygone times, in others still following each brief rainy season—has left the soil highly impregnated with substances, of which common salt is one of the most abundant, which, except in very weak solutions, are deleterious to plant life, since water containing them is absorbed with difficulty by the roots. ”

“ In many lakes, and in the ocean, the quantity of saline matter is so great as to render it unfit for diluent purposes; but, when sea-water freezes, the saline impregnations are deposited; and the ice affords fresh water. In the state in which water is generally employed as a diluent, its impregnations are in small quantity, and not usually sufficient either to dim its transparency, or to give it color, smell, or taste, and consequently to render it unfit for the ordinary purposes of life. ”

“ This conclusion on the subject, which is now generally accepted, is based on the theory that the Cheshire salt lake was situated in a desert, or more probably a salty steppe , such as are found in the region of the Caspian Sea, and that the climate was divided into wet and dry seasons. The presence of rock-salt supports these ideas, because the marls could only be formed in periods of heavy rainfall, and the salt could only crystallize out in dry, water-evaporating periods. ”

“ The great number of organisms, such as the Foraminifera which secrete calcareous tests or "shells" causes the slime on the continental 6 shelves to be calcareous and in the condition to form limestone if cemented or subjected to sufficient pressure. In the deep sea, where the hard parts of dead organisms fall through many thousands of feet of water, their more soluble portions are removed and the bottom is covered throughout vast areas with a pinkish clay composed of the more insoluble residue of the calcareous shells and the cases of silica-secreting animals and plants. ”

“ Gypsum deposits, like deposits of common salt, occur in beds which are the result of evaporation of salt water. Calcium makes up a small percentage of the dissolved material in the sea, and when sea waters are about 37 per cent evaporated it begins to be [Pg 285] precipitated as calcium sulphate. Conditions for precipitation are especially favorable in arid climates, in arms of the sea or in enclosed basins which may or may not once have been connected with the sea. ”

“ The loss that takes place from evaporation is to be made up by adding clear rain-water. The presence of a number of molluscous animals, such as the common periwinkle, is necessary for the consumption of the vegetable matter continually given off by the growing plants, and of the multitudinous spores, particularly of the confervæ, which would otherwise soon fill the water, rendering it greenish or brownish, and turbid. In a fresh-water aquarium the bottom should be covered with a layer of fine sand and shingle, and in this the weeds should be planted. ”

“ In the case of the freshwater algae, however, belonging to the Chlorophyceae and Cyanophyceae, although they required to be immersed during the vegetative period, the reproductive cells are often capable of resisting a considerable Habitat.degree of desiccation, and in this condition are dispersed through great distances by various agencies. Again, as is well known, many species of marine algae growing in the region between the limits of high and low water are so constituted that they are exposed to the air twice a day without injury. ”

“ The same difficulty, it may be noted, produces the peculiar and specialized flora of the salt-marshes which fringe the broad bay on which we look down from Farleton Fell. Here there is indeed a superabundance of water, but it is so charged with salt that if even the most vigorous species of the fields or woodlands are transplanted into it they will soon be dead; only plants long inured can grow there. Still, the conditions are not so adverse but that a continuous mat of vegetation extends, growing patchy and dying out only where the surface slopes below high-water mark. ”

“ According to our theory, the relation of the calcarious earth to air and water appeared to agree with the relation of the same earth to the vitriolic and vegetable acids. As chalk for instance has a stronger attraction for the vitriolic than for the vegetable acid, and is dissolved with more difficulty when combined with the first, than when joined to the second: so it also attracts air more strongly than water, and is dissolved with more difficulty when saturated with air than when compounded with water only. ”

“ These underground streams of brine all gravitate towards the pumps, widening and deepening as the continually renewed water takes up its supply of salt. Where the earths overlying these brine “runs” are not too tenacious, they soon follow the hollow or trough formed on the surface of the salt bed, and a corresponding hollow or trough is formed on the surface of the ground. Where the hollow forms at an early stage, it rarely attains any considerable depth, for the sinking earths impede the course of the flowing brine stream and cause the fluid to spread and be diffused over a wider area. ”

“ From the great number of fresh-water forms which we see at this present day acclimatized in, gradually acclimatizing themselves in, or periodically or sporadically migrating into, the sea, we must conclude that under certain circumstances salt water may cease to be a barrier at some period of the existence of fresh-water species, and that many of them have passed from one river through salt water into another. ”

“ In the dry season the evaporation, of course, increases the strength until the water can no longer retain the amount of salt in solution it therefore precipitates and crystalizes at the bottom in various degrees of thickness, according to the strength of the brine.
Thus, as the water recedes from the banks by evaporation and the lake decreases in size, it leaves a beach, not of shingles, but of pure salt in crystallized cubes, to the depth of several inches, and sometimes to half a foot or more. The bottom of the lake is equally coated with this thick deposit. ”

“ The filtration of water may now be considered. The water of our wells is presented by nature ready filtered to the hand of man, and often exhibits an admirable degree of transparency and purity. It acquires this state by percolating through the mineral strata of the earth, which deprives it of the organic matter it derives from the soil and subsoil, but, at the same time, it dissolves a portion of the saline and earthy media through which it passes, and hence acquires that peculiar ‘hardness’ which is constantly found in spring water. ”

“ Reptiles and animals of an inferior class are deprived of life by the action of salt water; and such organisms as the amœba, hydra, rotifer, and others of a similar grade which we see in stagnant ponds, are speedily killed if put into water in which salt is dissolved; this is also the case with earth-worms, snails, and indeed all insects as a general rule, especially if generated by animal and vegetable decay. ”