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country. It is amusing to behold the fuperftitions to which all ranks of men were devoted in the dark ages, still prevailing among the ignorant vulgar in the most enlightened age. This feems to afford a probable argument that they are congenial, and even inherent in human nature.

This appears on the whole to be a curious and entertaining collection; we are only afraid that the compilers have, in fome few inftances, facrificed their judgment to a love of the marvellous; a fault which it requires a man to poffefs a large fhare of philofophy, and even phlegm, to be entirely divested of.

IV. A Treatise on Mineral Waters. By Donald Monro, M. D. Phyfician to his Majefty's Army and to St. George's Hospital, F. R. S. In Two Vols. 8vo. Pr. 10s. 6d. Wilson and Nichol.

THE

HE fubje&t of these two volumes, whether confidered as curious or useful in medicine, forms one of the most interefting and valuable parts of natural history. The great prolixity of the authors, however, who have wrote on mineral waters, has much retarded, even among the faculty, the propagation of that branch of knowledge. For this reason, we behold with pleasure the publication of a more compendious system, which is executed with great care and accuracy in the judicious abridgment before us. In the first part of this work, the author treats of the general principles of water, confidered as a perfectly pure and unadulterated element; after which he proceeds to the confideration of rain and fnowwater, as the nearest to the standard of purity; and lastly, he prefents us with a view of the various fubftances with which water may be impregnated in the bowels of the earth, and of the methods by which the exiftence of fuch principles may be discovered. In the fecond part, he treats of cold, and in the third, of hot waters, where he has judiciously arranged each kind into fuch claffes as seemed best calculated for affording a diftinct idea of their nature and properties. In the account of each class, his method is first to give the general characteristics, and virtues of the waters belonging to it; and then to add the most accurate analyfis which has been inftituted of each particular kind; remarking the differences which authors have obferved in performing their experiments, and any particular virtues which have been ascribed to each water, more than what might be supposed to exift in the ge neral clafs to which it belongs. In this, account of the medicinal virtues of the feveral waters, the author has followed

the

the most unquestionable and authentic information, and has every where rejected the evidence of credulity or imposture, which had formerly fo much regulated the estimation of waters. As a fpecimen of the work, we fhall present our readers with the author's account of the fulphureous waters of Harrigate, and the chalybeate ones of Scarborough.

"Harrigate, near Knaresborough in Yorkshire.

Formerly there were only three fprings taken notice of, but lately a fourth has been discovered; they have all a ftrong fulphureous fmell; and, from Dr. Short's account, feem to be nearly of the fame ftrength with respect to their fulphureous qualities, though the quantity of faline matter be different in each. As the water fprings up it is clear and sparkling, and throws up a quantity of air-bubbles.

This water has a falt and fulphureous tafte, and a strong fulphureous fmell, which it retains after being exposed to a boiling heat, and part of the water evaporated.

• This water presently blackens filver, and its folution; and likewife a folution of fugar of lead and of gold, and precipitates a black fediment with each. It turns the earth on which it ftagnates for any time, of a black colour, as well as the mud at the bottom of the well; and, after standing fome time, it throws up a thick dry white fcum; and both the mud and fcum, if dried in the fun, Dr. Short fays, burn with a blue flame, and fmell ftrong of fulphur. He tells us, that when Dr. George Neale attended at this place, that the ftones at the bottom of the well were raised, and under them was found a great quantity of yellow fublimed flowers of fulphur. However, as we before obferved, this fact has been doubted by many.

And the fticks, grafs, &c. in the courfe of this water, are covered with a white hairy mucus.

This water became white and milky with alkalies; but only appeared to be whitifh with fpirit of vitriol, and of a whitish clear colour with spirit of fea falt.

The water of the firft fpring weighs feventy-two grains in a pint heavier than common water; of the fecond fpring only thirty-two grains; of the third fifty-eight grains; and fpirits in the thermometer, funk of an inch lower than in

common water.

Evaporated, Dr. Short got two ounces of fediment from a gallon of the first spring water; of which near two fcruples were earth, the reft a faline matter.

A gallon of the fecond well yielded near half an ounce of fediment, of which two drachms and a scruple were earth. • A gal

A gallon of the third well yielded an ounce and a half of fediment, of which a drachm and twelve grains were earth.

• The faline matter of these waters, from both Dr. Short and Dr. Rutty's experiments, proves to be moftly a fea falt, with a fmall mixture of a bittern or a calcareous Glauber.

In fummer 1768, I wrote to a friend (a physician who often refides for fome months at Harrigate in fummer) and afked his opinion concerning the nature of the waters, and particularly about the existence of real fulphur in them, and I had the following answer:

"I have taken particular notice of every appearance of the Harrigate waters, and muft own I never obferved any appearance of fulphur floating in them, nor any fcum at the top of the well; neither could I meet with any person in that quarter who remembered the appearance of real fulphur fublimed, upon taking up the ftones at the bottom of the well, as mentioned by Dr. Neale.

"The waters are perfectly limpid, and have a strong fulphureous fmell, when taken out of the well, without the leaft appearance of a cloud in them, or a scum upon the top; but if they be expofed to the atmosphere for a few hours, they become turbid, and have a thin fcum or pellicle upon the furface, not fo ftrong as upon lime water, and they lofe their fulphureous fmell and depofit a whitish fediment.

"The volatile fpirit in which the fulphur (or what gives them this finell) feems to refide, is so very strong, that if the waters be bottled, and a fufficient space is not left between the cork and the furface of the water, they burst the bottles.

"With diftilled vinegar there neither enfues an effervefcence nor change of colour; but with the spirit of vitriol they become a little cloudy.

"With all the volatile alkalies they turn immediately cloudy, and after standing fome time there drops a separation to the bottom of the glass, like a strong solution of foap; and the falts are found sticking to the fides of the glass in small round grains.

"The vegetable alkali turns them cloudy, but does not form fo ftrong a coagulum at the bottom of the glafs."

Thefe waters, in fmall quantities, are good alteratives, and, when drank in large quantity, are ftrongly purgative; they are drank from a pint to three quarts in the forenoon.

Thefe, like other faline purging fulphureous waters, have been much ufed, and found extremely ferviceable in cutaneous diforders and in fcrophulous cafes; and they have been found to be amongst the best remedies for deftroying and evacuating worms, and their nidus; and to be extremely use

ful

ful where the digestion has been bad, and the bowels and intestines been full of vifcid flimy matter; and to affift in removing many chronic obftructions.

They are likewife much employed for external use, by way of washes, fomentations, and baths, particularly in cutaneous diforders.

At fome fmall distance from Harrigate, near to Knaresborough, is another fulphur well of the fame kind, of which a gallon leaves two drachms of solid contents, fourteen grains of which are earth. And near to Harrigate are two chalybeate fprings, the strongest called the Tuewhet Spring, or Allum, Well, the other the Sweet Spring.'

• Scarborough, in Yorkshire.

The purging chalybeate waters of this place are the most frequented, and more used than any other of this class in England. We have a very particular analyfis given of them by the late Dr. Shaw, who attended the water-drinkers here for many years.

There are two wells, the one more purgative and the other ftronger of the chalybeate principles than the other; and hence that nearest the town has been called the chalybeate Spring, the other the purging; though they are both impregnated with the fame principles, but in different proportions; the purging is the most famed, and that which is best known, and generally is called the Scarborough water.

• Both these waters are clear and chryftalline, though not fo much fo as the purer kinds of rock water; when poured out of one glafs into another, they throw up numerous air bubbles; and if fhook for a while in a clofe ftopt phial, and the phial be fuddenly opened before the commotion ceafes they difplode a kind of vapour with an audible noise.

At the fountain they have both a brifk pungent chalybeate tafte, but the purging water taftes manifeftly bitterifh, which the chalybeate does not ufually do.

• Their temperature is nearly the fame as that of common water, equally defended from the fun and open air; and their specific gravities nearly the fame, though ufually both are rather heavier than common water.

Both waters, when fresh, presently strike a dark red, or purple with galls; though the chalybeate does this with greater celerity, and in a higher degree than the other, and both turn fyrup of violets green. They curdle foap, and likewife milk, if boiled with it.

'Dr. Shaw fays, they both make an ebullition with acids, and toon destroy the acidity thereof; an ounce of the purging

water

water will take off entirely the acidity of a drop of rectified oil of vitriol. With alkalies they exhibit a white cloud, and let fall a copious white earth.

They both lofe their chalybeate properties and transparency by keeping, or being exposed to the air; but the cha lybeate retains them longeft.

Four or five half pints of the purging water, drank in the space of an hour, give two or three eafy motions, and raife the spirits. The like quantity of the chalybeate purges lefs, but raises the spirits more, and goes off chiefly by urine.

Both these waters putrefy by keeping, but in time they become fweet again.

• Dr. Shaw put four pounds of the purging water into a retort, and diftilling it with a flow heat to drinefs, had remaining two drachms, or one hundred and twenty grains of folid matter. In performing this operation, as foon as the water became hot, numerous air bubbles appeared, and a volatile fubftance or air puffed through the luted point of the retort and receiver when about one eighth of another parcel of water was exhaled in an open veffel, fpangly concretions like duft appeared on the furface, and by degrees more and more of a grained matter fell to the bottom.

Distilled Scarborough water differs in nothing from common distilled water.

The dry matter, or refiduum, left on evaporating these waters, felt fomewhat rough between the fingers, diffolved in the mouth, and had a remarkable bitter, faline, roughish tafte. This refiduum lixiviated and filtered, yielded one third, or forty grains of infoluble matter, made up of a calcareous, bolar, felenitical and ochreous earth. The filtered liquor yielded eighty grains compofed of two forts of falts; between feventy-five and feventy-fix grains of a calcareous Glauber falt; and between four and five grains of sea salt.

Hence we fee, that according to this analyfis of Dr. Shaw's, a gallon of this water, befides a mineral spirit and air, contains about two hundred and forty grains of folid matter, eighty grains of infoluble matter, made up of a calcareous, bolar, and felenitical earth, with a portion of ochre, and one hundred and fixty grains of a faline matter, compofed of above one hundred and fifty grains of a calcareous Glauber falt, and not quite ten grains of fea falt.

Dr. Short, who likewife analyfed this water, fays, that it is weaker and ftronger at different feafons; that he has got fometimes fix drachms, twenty-four grains, or three hundred and eighty-four grains of fediment from a gallon; at other times only five drachms, one grain, or three hundred and one

grains;

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