The natural and agricultural history of peat-moss or turf-bog. To which are annexed corroborative writings, correspondence and observations... / by Andrew Steele.

  • Steele, Andrew.
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The natural and agricultural history of peat-moss or turf-bog. To which are annexed corroborative writings, correspondence and observations... / by Andrew Steele. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    is incumbent on me to mention, that a bottle of pure spring-water, put aside at the same time for a comparative trial, was, at the distance of seventeen months, as pure and free of disagreeable taste and smell as it was when first taken out of the cistern. On the 17th of May 1801, being about three weeks after this spring-water was set apart, it had acquir¬ ed a most fetid taste and smell, which did not wholly depart from it till about 1st December 1801, when it became vapid. The difference is, that peat-water never becomes offensive, or is subject to produce or harbour any living creatures. Water of itself is a pure mineral, without taste or smell. The moss- water holding vegetable matter in solution, is pre¬ served by its antiseptic quality; but spring-water, when at rest, permits the vegetable and animal matters in it to rot and become offensive. I have, however, found on trial, that the water of a certain very deep pump-well never became fetid, after being kept for years. It was, I presume, free of animal and vegetable impregnations. Sir John Pringle found, that an infusion of Virginian snake-root or of camomile flowers, from the antiseptic nature of them, was twelve times more strongly preservative than their weight of common