Lower Blue Lick Spring : the quantitative chemical analysis of the water of the Lower Blue Lick Spring, in Nicholas County, Ky. : with remarks on some other salt springs of the blue limestone formation / by Robert Peter.

  • Peter, Robert, 1805-1894.
Date:
[1850?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lower Blue Lick Spring : the quantitative chemical analysis of the water of the Lower Blue Lick Spring, in Nicholas County, Ky. : with remarks on some other salt springs of the blue limestone formation / by Robert Peter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    numerous orthocerata; trilobiles, especially the large IsotduB gigas; the characteristic coral the chmtete8 lycoperdon; some crinoidian remains; a few cyathophitta; with a great variety of ehells of mollusca, of the genera Dilthvris, Lepiana, Or- this, Atrypa, Pleurotomaria Bdleropkon, i\C, fyc On this Blue Limestone are seated the richest and most durable lands of the west, characterising the region in which this formation comes to the surface. These lands doubtless owe their fertility to this rock—from whence the soil has probably been derived by its flow disintegration,—which abounding in phosphate of lime, ,he alkalies, and the other mineral elements of the food of plants, especially in those layers which are rich in fossil remains, gives the peculiar fatness to the soil which is formed from U.$ The well Known Big Bone Lick of Kentucky is seated on this same rock formation, and the com- position of the water of the spring in that locality appears, by all accounts, to be nearly analogous to that of the Blue Licks; it being a saline eulpur spring like the latter. Indeed, the Blue Lime- stone is very geui rally known as a saliieroua for- mation; which is doubilresio be referred to its sub-marine origin. Numerous springs of salt ■water have been found on it, and many salt wells, some containing sulphuretted hydrogen, have been obtained in it by boring. Atthe Blue Licks, besidethe mainspring, there are a number of minor ones, on the two sides ot the Licking river and in its be J, the water of some of which has been examined by the author, and found to be very much like that of the principal spring in composition. Johnson's well, in Scott county, Ky., also presents a composition some- $ In the year 1849 the author submitted two dif- ferent specimens of the Blue Limestone, from the dif- ferent layers to chemical analysis, with a view to as- certain its agricultural relationships. The results, as published at the time in the Albany Cultivator, (vol. vi., p. 105,1849,) are as follows: SPECIMEN]. SPECIMEN 2. Carbonic Acid 30,675 40,5:! Phosphoric Acid 1,350 36 Sulphuric Acid 807 not estimated. Lime 47,040 50,97 Magnesia BOO 66 Alumina and oxide of Iron.. 9,880 :>? Fine Sand and Silicates I .,; Moisture and loss i ,552 '49 100,000 100,000 In addition to these ingredients, potash and soda were obtained from the limestone in notable propor- tions; as much as 0.0487 per cent of potash, in one case, and 0.0058 percent in another. It is probable that a considerable proportion of the iron is in the form of carbonate of the proioxide in the recently ex- posed blue rock, while some little is present as a sul- phuret. what analogous to that of the Blue Lick water, but it is much weaker and contains more msgne- sian salts. While the water of the superficial wells and springs, on this formation, a»e generally what is denominated nard or limestone wate'—containing bi-carbonates of lime and magnesia, with a little iron, and some phosphate of lime, held in solution by carbouic acid; these salt wells, or licks, so called, contain chlorides of sodium and potassi- um, chlorides of calcium and magnesium, sul- phate and carbonate of lime, flic, and are fre- quently impregnated, lo a greater or lees degree, with sulphuretted hydrogen. Saline water of this character, as above intimated, hae been frr quent- ly obtained on the Blue Limestone formation by boring. For example, inthe little town of Keene, in Jessamine county, Ky., a water was obtained in this manner, in 1848, by Mr. Wrn. K. Dean, which is a very good salt sulphur water, and has been considerably employed for its medicinal pro- perties. It contains sulphuretted hydrogen and carbonic acid gases; bi-carbonates of lime and magnesia, with a trace of bi-carbonate of soda; chlorides of sodium, calcium, magnesium, and doubtless of potassium, with a trace of iron; but this is much weaker than the Blue Lick waler containing only 1 6 grains of saline in the KJU0 grains of the water; being only about one sixth the strength of the former. In a later testing, in May, 1850, it was found to be yet weaker, proba- bly because of the then extremely wet season.— This water has not been fully analyzed to delect the presence of iodine and bromine. la Scolt county of this State, in a well bored to the depth of 176 leet in this limt.slone, Mr. W. Koszell obtained a water which contains a nota- ble proportion of chloridesof sodium, calcium and magnesium, &c, 6tc, and smells strongly of eul- phurreitec hydrogen. The water of another bored well—103 feet deep, obtained in 1848 by Majut B. Koberls, in Harrison county, also on Ihe Blue Limestone Foimation,—has a very slight bitu- minous or sulphureous odor, bu'. contains as much 'iB sixteen parts in the thousand of saline matters, principally chloride of sodium, with chlorides of potassium, calcium and magnesium; sulphate of lime; bi-carbonates of lime, magnesia and iron, and a trace of iodine. This is rather stronger in salts than the Hlue Lick wat*r, and differs from it also in its deficiency of sulphuretted hydrogen, but in otherrespects they resemble each other veiy much in composition. Anoth r well, 81 1-2 feet deep, was made by Bo- ring, in Scott counly, near Georgetown, on the property of Mr. K. Ford, the water of which con- tains as much as 4 per cent, of saline matter, prin- cipally common salt, with sulphates of lime and potash, chloridesof calcium and magnesium, &c, &c. Some of the wells in Lexington yield a w.tter smelling slightly of sulphuretted hydro en, and while penning these remarks, a bottle of water was brought to me from a boring ia progress, forty-