Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

LITCHFIELD, July 26.

A description of the Mineral Waters, west of Saratoga, in a letter from a gentleman who had visited them, to his friend in this town.

"Dear Sir,

IN your last, you requested a description of the curious Mineral Springs near Saratoga; I herein comply with your request, as far as my own observations, and the chemical experiments of my friend Doctor T--, during the time we visited them, have enabled me.

They are eight or nine in number, situated in the margin of a marsh, formed by a branch of Kayaderosseras Creek, about twelve miles west from the confluence of Fish-Creek and Hudson's river. They are surrounded by a rock of a peculiar kind and nature, formed by the petrefaction of the water. One of them, however, more particularly attracts the attention; it rises above the surface of the earth five or six feet in the form of a pyramid: The aperture in the top, which discovers the water, is perfectly cylindrical, of about nine inches diameter. In this, the water is about 12 inches below the top, except at the time of its annual discharge, which is commonly in the beginning of Summer. At all times it appears to be in as great agitation as if boiling in a pot, although it is extremely cold. The same appearances obtain in other springs, except that the surrounding rocks are of different figures, and the water flows regularly from them.

By observation and experiment, we found the principal impregnation of the water to be a fossil acid, which is predominant in the taste of the water, and in the taste and smell of the petrified matter about it. From the corrosive and dissolving nature of the acid, the water acquires a chalybeate property, and receives into its composition a portion of calcareous earth, which when separated, resembles an impure magnesia. As the different springs have no essential variance in the nature of their waters, but the proportions of the chalybeate impregnation, it is rendered probable that they are derived from one common source, but flow in separate channels, where they have connection with metallic bodies, in greater or less proportions.

The prodigious quantity of air contained in this water, makes another distinguishing property of it. This air, striving for enlargement, produces the fermentation and violent action of the water before described. After the water has stood a small time in any open vessel (no tight one will contain it) the air escapes, becomes vapid, and loses all that life and pungency which distinguish it when first taken from the pool. The particles of dissolved earth are deposited as the water flows off, which, with the combination of the salts and fixed air, concrete and form the rocks about the springs.

The effect it produces upon the human body is various; the natural operation of it, when taken, is cathartick, in some instances an emetick. As it is drank, it produces an agreeable sensation passing over the organs of taste, but as soon as it is swallowed, there succeeds an unpleasant tang, and the eructations which take place afterward, have a pungency very similar to those produced by the use of cider or beer, in a state of fermentation. I am, &c."