Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York

Mr. Chilton's Report.

EXAMINATION OF THE CROTON RIVER WATER.

1. The application of re-agents to the water showed the absence of sulphuric acid and sulphates; and the presence of lime, magnesia, carbonic acid, muriatic acid and vegetable matter.

2. By evaporation to dryness, resolution of soluble matter, and filtering, a residuum was obtained, which dissolved in dilute muriatic acid with effervescence, except a portion of vegetable matter.

3. The watery solution of soluble matter (in No. 2,) contained muriate of magnesia and vegetable extract, without lime.

4. The muriatic solution (of No. 2,) which in its formation was attended with effervescence, contained both lime and magnesia; the matter dissolved therefrom must have been the carbonates of these earths.

From these results we are authorized to consider muriate of magnesia, carbonate of lime, carbonate of magnesia, and vegetable matter, as the only ingredients of the water.

5. A half-gallon, principally from the bottle marked ✪,* yielded by evaporation, 2,333 grains residuum moderately dried, consisting of

Vegetable matter,.

Carbonates of lime and magnesia,

Muriate of magnesia,

133

1.200

1.000

2.333 grains.

6. No. 1 and No. 2, a quart of each, yielded 1.3 grains, which is †2.6 grains of dry residuum for the half-gallon, consisting of

7. Six pints from two bottles yielded only 2.1 grains of dry matter, the vegetable matter reduced to charcoal and burnt off. This gives for the half gallon 1.4 grains.

* Taken from the Croton, at Wood's bridge, at low water.

† Nos. 1 and 2, from the branches of the upper Croton.

From the Croton, at Wood's bridge, at high water.

The average of these three separate results is, for the half-gallon 2.08 grains, or for the gallon, 4.16 grains.

The quantity of vegetable matter being not only different in the different samples, but dried at different temperatures, may have occasioned, in good part, the difference apparent in the above results. From experiment (7) it seems to follow, that the quantity of saline matter cannot exceed 2.8 grains in the gallon, a quantity so small that a considerable quantity of the water would be necessary to determine very minutely the proportional quantity of each of its ingredients.

(Signed.)

GEORGE CHILTON.