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CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
WATER.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
MUSHROOMS FOR THE MILLION.
A YARN OF THE P. AND O.
SEALS AND SEAL-HUNTING IN SHETLAND.
SOME SACRED TREES.
IN A HIGHLAND GLEN.
THE RIME OF SIR LIONNE.
No. 32.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 1884.
WATER.
Water bears a very important part in relationto the human system and preservation of health.It combines with the tissues of the body, andforms a necessary part of its structure. In thecase of a man weighing one hundred and fifty-fourpounds, one hundred and eleven would consist ofwater. It enters very largely into the compositionof our food. Although water is so importanta factor in our existence, and although its vitiationoften gives rise to that deadly pestilence,typhoid fever, yet, strange to say, there are comparativelyfew people who possess any trustworthyinformation respecting its primary sources andpurest forms. The object of this paper will beto afford our readers some useful hints respectingthe various kinds of water and theirrelative purity, also to mention certain wiseprecautions requisite in order to avoid impurewater.
The first great source of water is the ocean;the sun shining upon the surface, its heating rayscombine with and send out a certain amount ofvapour. The atmosphere, like a sponge, absorbsthe vaporous water, forming clouds, which aredriven by the wind east, west, north, andsouth. When the clouds arrive in a cooleratmosphere, the vapour condenses, and descendsin the form of rain or snow, being ultimatelyabsorbed into the earth, giving rise to differentvarieties of water; or it pours downthe mountains, and forms rivulets, and ultimatelyrivers. Thus we have rain, spring, andriver water. We may here mention that DrNormandy discovered a process by which sea-watercan be distilled and rendered fit to drink.In nature, water is never found perfectly pure, asthat which descends in rain is to a certain degreecontaminated by the impurities contained in theair, as spring-water is by contact with varioussubstances in the earth. These impurities arenot always perceptible. Thus, the clearest andbrightest waters, those of springs and pellucidrivers, even when filtered, are never pure. Theyall contain a greater or less percentage of salinematter, often so much so, indeed, as to form whatare termed mineral waters. Amongst the pur