A treatise on the Bath waters. Pt. I / by George Smith Gibbes.

  • Gibbes, George Smith, 1771-1851.
Date:
1812
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the Bath waters. Pt. I / by George Smith Gibbes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    11/114 (page 13)
    bowels the of earth, a Various have been.the opi- nions respecting the cause of~ the heat of these waters. Subterranean fires, fermentation, the de- composition of pyrites, &c. have each'-had theit advocates. Dr. Cheyne accounts for the heat of these waters by the following experiment, If filings of iron and the pow'der of sulphur made into a paste with water, are put into a cellal'under a cock which dfops water gradually and slowly' it will ferment, and the water running from it will be of the same heat and virtue with those of Bath, though nol equally pleasant. Tournefort ob- serves, that the filings of iron will grovv warm by steeping in common water, but much more so in sea-water; and if powdered sulphur be added, the mixture will burn. As our researches into the operations which are going on in the interior of the globe, are limited, actual experiment must, in many instances, be assisted by analogy, and our reasonings be often taken from remote data.;- It is hardly possible to conceive the variety of circumstances to w'hich nature may extend the application of her iaW'S. Principles, which on the surface of the earth act without interruption, in the bowels of the earth become formidable, and produce some of her boldest features. The matter of heat, for exam pie, which meets with but little interruption in its course through the substances forming the super- ficies, in the interior causes convulsions w'hich