Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 1.djvu/328



h. A few drops of dilute muriatic acid, which dissolved the whole with a brisk effervescence.

i. Oxalate of ammonia, a copious precipitates

k. The solution from which the lime was thrown down, by the hat experiment, was filtered, and the same test applied as in exp c. which produced a similar effect, but in a very slight degree.

The water of Walm's Well therefore contains about 12 grains of solid ingredients in a gallon, which appear to consist of:

1. Carbonate of lime as the principal ingredient; by exp. b, i.

2. Carbonate of magnesia in minute quantity, by exp. a. k. and by the effect of the barytic water in the preliminary experiments. From the change produced on the violet paper, in exp. a, and from the action of the barytic water, which last test occasions a precipitate with carbonate of soda, I suspected that there might be a small quantity of that alkali existing in the water of the spring; but by comparative trials I found that, on applying these tests to a solution of carbonate of magnesia in water, exactly the same effects were produced.

3. Muriate of soda, or mangesia, by exp. d. c; probably the latter; for in one experiment, the entire solid ingredients were, by accident, dried at a heat that must have decomposed the muriate of magnesia, that earth being found in the insoluble residuum in greater quantity than when the evaporation had been carried on with a gentle heat, and there was only a trace of it discovered in the part soluble in water.

4. Sulphate of soda, or magnesia, by exp. c, e, f; probably the former; as the proportion of sulphuric acid indicated is more considerable than that of magnesia and that earth seems to be combined with muriatic acid.