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Show 194 Lime • •• « • trace Magnesia trace. Silicic acid » *. *...*. trace. Organic matter » trace. Sufphureted hydrogen trace. 39.3 WARM SPRING, NEAR LITTLE OWENS LAKE, INYO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. A sample of this water was collected by Lieut. R. Birnie, jr., of division No. 2, of your expedition, who kindly furnished me with the following notes: The spring is situated 300 yards from Little Lake, near a basaltic bluff 20 to 30 feet in height, and extending north to south several miles. The water is lukewarm, odorless, and forms no deposits or incrustations. A mineral taste is hardly perceptible. The following is the composition: In one hundred thousand parts are contained parts- Sodium carbonate 45.2 Sodium sulphate 8.0 Sodium chloride 26.9 Calcium carbonate, with trace magnesium carbonate .'... 12.0 Organic matter trace. Potassium, \ ^^ Silicic acid, ] traoe6. Total 92.1 Here may be the proper place to mention that the water of Little Owens Lake ( also called " Little Lake") is not brackish, nor charged with mineral salts, like Owen* Lake, Black Lake, and Mono Lake, according to information I obtained from Lieut R. Birnie, jr. THERMAL ACID SPRINGS, IN THE COSO RANGE, INYO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. These singular springs, situated in the Coso range, 12 miles east of Little Owens Lake, are the discovery of Lieut. R. Birnie, jr., of your survey, through whose kindness I was provided with information regarding them and with several bottles of water for analysis. They have but a limited flow, and form pools through which steam is continually ejected. Large deposits of sulphur ( the specimen 1 received from Lieutenant Birnie was a solid chunk of nearly pure sulphur) cover the surronndings, and hundreds of tons of this material are said to exist in the neighboring mountains, where extinct and living thermal springs are numerous. The taste of the water is intensely sour, making it perfectly unfit for drinking par-poses. It has no smell, but formerly there must have been large quantities of sol-phureted hydrogen contained in it, as the sulphur deposits indicate, it IB true, I found a large proportion of free sulphuric acid in these waters, but the sulphur deposits cannot be derived from this source. Chemists are, at least, unacquainted with a process br which free sulphuric acid would turn under the circumstances, as the above, into sol* phur. The composition is certainly a remarkable one, as will be seen from the following analysis: In one hundred thousand parts of water are contained parts- Free sulphuric acid 78.4 Potassium sulphate 2.5 Sodium sulphate 15.1 Calcium sulphate 15.3 Magnesium sulphate 1-* Aluminium persulphate 127* jj Iron persulphate 33.2 Nitric acid traces. Phosphoric acid traces. Chlorine traces. Ammonia traces. Lithium , traces. Springs or lakes of a chemical composition like this are very rare. I know only of one instance analogous to i t ; that is the " Sour Lake " in Texas. Singular is also the small trace of chlorides in a water so strongly charged with mineral matters. P. S.- Quite recently Boussingault has discovered and analysed quite analogous springs in the vicinity of the volcanoes of the South American Cordilleras de los Andes. ( Annales de chimie et de physique, 1875.) |