Hard water

“ The chief source of supply for water which falls on the earth is from the ocean. The heat of the sun raises a vapour from its surface. This vapour condenses and falls as rain or snow, either on sea or land. Rain after falling for some time is almost pure and for that reason is called soft. Hard water contains various minerals. ”

“ Hard water makes the skin rough, but soft water, on the contrary, renders it smooth. When water, with the slightest acidity in it, has been suffered to remain in leaden pipes, pumps or cisterns for any length of time, it absorbs the dangerous qualities of the lead ”

“ All waters which have been in contact with the soil dissolve out of it numerous inorganic and organic substances. Waters are described as hard or soft, hardness being the popular expression for the property of not easily forming a lather with soap. It is due to the presence of salts of lime and magnesia. Hard waters, if their hardness be not excessive, are agreeable and wholesome for drinking, but not well adapted for laundry or bathing purposes. They tend to harden vegetables cooked in them, and do not make as good tea as soft water. ”

“ As we are anxious to instruct the readers of this Journal in the science of every-day life, we propose to consider the subject of water-supply in some detail, and in the present article to explain the serious inconveniences which result from an injudicious selection of hard water for domestic purposes. ”

“ You have learnt by sad experience that water, which seems to offer so little resistance to a body drawn slowly through it, is remarkably hard if struck violently. In fact, if enclosed, it becomes more incompressible than steel, without in any way losing its fluidity. We possess in water, therefore, a very useful agent for transmitting energy from one point to another. Shove one end of a column of water, and it gives a push to anything at its other end; but then it must be enclosed in a tube to guide its operation. ”

“ Surface water is more likely to contain suspended matter, with very little of dissolved substances. Suspended matter, like mud, contains much objectionable matter such as putrefactive organisms and iron, but most of these materials can be removed by filtration or sedimentation, and seldom cause any difficulties.
Hardness in water is generally the chief source of trouble when the water is at fault. Hardness may be of two kinds, either permanent, or temporary, or sometimes both are found together. Water which is permanently hard usually contains the lime and magnesia combined as sulphates. ”

“ The mechanical forces employed in the disintegration of mineral substances, are more easily marked than the chemical. Here again water appears as the most active enemy of hard and solid bodies; and, in every state, from transparent vapour to solid ice, from the smallest rill to the greatest river, it attacks whatever has emerged above the level of the sea, and labours incessantly to restore it to the deep. ”

“ For the most widespread use, the most desirable water is a cold water as free from mineral content as possible, and especially one lacking an excess of lime and magnesia which make it hard; also lacking an excess of acid constituents like sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide, or chlorine, which give the water a taste, or which make impossible its use in boilers. ”

“ For first, the most excellent Governour, by His Divine Providence, hath most wisely ordained and appointed, that a salt water of this kind, which men could in no wise be without, should break forth out of the Earth, and it is thus effected: The Sea-water every where passing through the passages and clefts of the Earth, in some places is dried up by the Central fire, and coagulated into hard and great pieces, which being digged up by men, and dissolved by the help of Water, and freed from its fæces, is boiled up in fit Vessels, and reduced into a pure Salt. ”

“ This drains off from the surface, forming rills, which collect as they descend, by their own weight, into the lowest channels of the ground, and form into streams and rivers, and back into the sea comes the water which the air had taken away, with this difference, that it is free from salt and fit for the many uses to which fresh water alone can be applied; when the vapour rises from the sea, none of the saline matters rise with it, for, although the water is volatile, yet they are not, and this is the whole source of fresh water. ”

“ It is obviously the stronghold of the English heterogenist. "Water," he says, "is boiling merrily over a fire, when some luckless person upsets the vessel so that the heated fluid exercises its scathing influence upon an uncovered portion of the body—hand, arm, or face. Here at all events there is no room for doubt. Boiling water unquestionably exercises a most pernicious and rapidly-destructive effect upon the living matter of which we are composed." ”

“ There is no outlet above ground, no stream flowing from it, and it is, of course, a stagnant water, with no other circulation than than which springs from the changes in temperature and from the gas and petroleum that are constantly rising through the pool. ”

“ Every considerable addition to its water wells up, and soaks its very surface; and that which is added after it is already brim full, must flow off over the surface, or lie in puddles upon it. Evaporation is a slow process, and it becomes more and more slow as the level of the water recedes from the surface, and is sheltered, by the overlying earth, from the action of sun and wind. ”

“ When this happens, the water bursts forth exactly as in a natural spring except that under some conditions the pressure may be sufficient to force the water rising in a pipe instead of through the ground to flow above the surface of the ground as a fountain or jet, making what is known as an [Pg 111] "artesian well." A true well, on the other hand, may be put down in the ground and through strata where springs could never develop; that is, where no pressure exists in such a way as to bring the water to the surface, as in Fig. ”

“ The water begins to get salt when the evaporation from the lake exceeds the inflow. The inflowing waters bring in a small amount of saline and alkaline matter, which becomes more and more concentrated as the evaporation increases. ”

“ If, on the other hand, we increase the pressure on the surface of the water by any means, such, for example, as by placing it in a chamber of compressed air, the water can be heated to a higher temperature without boiling away. ”

“ The explanation, of course, is simple. The brine is of greater specific gravity than the pure water; the pressure of the heavier fluid forces the lighter up in the tube. This action continues until, as you will see by this experiment, in the gradual diffusion of brine and pure water the salt is disseminated equally throughout the vessels, and the specific gravity of the mixed liquid becomes the same throughout, when the flow will cease. However, in the earth, where supplies are inexhaustible, the fountain flows unceasingly. ”

“ When the ground water is at the low mark the shallow well becomes dry; as the water rises it flows into the well. When the water has reached the high mark the intermittent spring becomes a flowing spring. The pressure of the ground water is great enough to produce flowing wells down on the level.
Not all wells, by any means, will furnish a pure water supply. There are many factors to consider from the viewpoint of the pollution of well water and these will be considered in due time. When water reaches an impervious strata it remains at that level and moves in a horizontal plane. ”

“ Hence we see the Benefit of frequently replenishing the Water with fresh Air, which we find is necessary not only to preserve the Life of [Pg 72] Land Animals, but also of Fish; as also the Use of their Gills, to spread in thin Sheets fresh Supplies of Water, that they may the better come at the Air in the Water; for which Purpose both Sides of their Gills are furrowed with many fine Furrows, not only thereby to enlarge their Surfaces, but also more minutely to divide the Water, whereby to come at the Air in it. ”

“ This is because water, in flowing from place to place, expends force in overcoming the friction of the pipes and the resistance of the air. The greater the distance traversed by the water in its journey from reservoir to faucet, the greater the waste force and the less the final flow. ”

“ Such a salt-water saucer of fresh water is maintained full to overflowing by the rainfall, and owing to the frictional resistance of the sand and to capillary action and the fact that a given column of fresh water is balanced by a shorter column of sea water, the fresh water never sinks to the mean sea-level unless artificially abstracted. ”

“ Absorption and Filtration.—The process of under-draining is a process of absorption and filtration, as distinguished from surface-flow and evaporation. The completeness with which the latter are prevented, and the former promoted, is the measure of the completeness of the improvement. If water lie on the surface of the ground until evaporated, or if it flow off over the surface, it will do harm; if it soak away through the soil, it will do good. ”

“ Into one of the nozzles, when the tide comes over it, is constantly sucked a current of sea-water which passes into a stomach-like cavity, where the minute particles of food in the water are caught and digested; then the water passes on through another cavity where the blood receives its oxygen, as in our lungs or a crab's or fish's gills, and then rushes out. ”

“ The bulk of the hydræ decreases, in proportion as they extend themselves, and vice versa. They may be made to contract themselves, either by touching them, or agitating the water in which they are contained. They all contract themselves so much when, taken out of the water, as to appear only like a little lump of jelly. ”

“ When the receiver is full of the sand, sea water is poured on the top, and this, in its way down, carries with it the salt left by evaporation. When it runs out below at a small hole, it is a very strong brine ”

“ An Artesian well, so called from the province of Artois, in France, is a shaft sunk or bored through impermeable strata, until a water-bearing stratum is tapped, when the water is forced upwards by the hydrostatic pressure due to the superior level at which the rain-water was received. ”

“ These springs feed the streams and rivers which carry the water back again to the sea. It is owing to this continuous circulation of water that the sea does not overflow, or the rivers dry up. Moreover, those damp exhalations supply the air with that moisture which is necessary to the life of men and beasts, and to the growth of plants. One thing more. You know that water turns foul when it remains for some time without being stirred. How is it that though it is shut in one place, the water of the sea never turns foul? ”

“ The facts are; first that water, being all but incompressible, is hardly any heavier, and just as liquid, at the greatest depth, than at the surface; and that therefore animals can move as freely in it in deep as in shallow water; and next, that as the fluids inside the body of a sea animal must be at the same pressure as that of the water outside it, the two pressures must balance each other; and the body, instead of being crushed in, may be unconscious that it is living under a weight of two or three miles of water. ”

“ The blood can hold about twice as much gas in solution as an equal quantity of water, and when the diver is working in shallow depths, up to, say, 30 ft, the amount of nitrogen absorbed is so small that he can stop down as long as is necessary for the purposes of the work, and can come up to the surface as quickly as he likes without any danger. ”

“ For it will be seen afterwards that some natural waters in passing through a long course of lead pipes, within which the action goes on without direct access of the atmosphere, contract an impregnation, which is invisible when the water is newly drawn, but after a few hours’ exposure to the air shows itself in the form of a white film and milkiness. ”

“ The tide flows up the river many miles past the waterworks, carrying up with it the filth from the sewers. The supply of water was, to be sure, obtained when the tide was down, but as the banks of the river are clothed with sedges in many parts, and its bottom deep with mud, the water can never be free from sewage. ”

“ If a run is made without water, the second run will probably be made with hot water, or two runs without water and then the hot water or with cold water at once, and then hot water. Cold water is not injurious, but oil gathered by the hot water process is not as fine, and does not keep as well as that expressed without water or with the use of the cold. ”

“ Put any measured quantity of the water into a platina, or silver evaporating basin, the weight of which is known, and evaporate the water upon a steam bath, at a temperature of about 180°, nearly to dryness; and, lastly, remove the basin to a sand bath, and let the mass be evaporated to perfect dryness. The weight of the platina basin being already known, we have only to weigh it carefully. When the solid saline contents of the water is attached to it, the increase of weight gives the quantity of solid matter contained in a given quantity of the water. ”

“ The great beds of salt, deep in the earth, are usually accumulations left there by water that is drawn from brine lakes, from which the liberated water often escaped as pure spring water at the surface of the earth. It does not escape by evaporation, at least not until it reaches the earth's surface. ”

“ The sea-water was mythical. Many of the taps refused to function at the same time as any other, and the only two which were really effective were WAVE and FLOOD. Wave shot out a thin jet of boiling water which caught me in the chest, and FLOOD filled the bath with cold water long before it could be identified and turned off.
No, taps are not of the first importance, though, properly polished, they look well. But no bath is complete without one of these attractive bridges [Pg 64] or trays where one puts the sponges and the soap. Conveniences like that are a direct stimulus to washing. ”