Snow Water has been supposed to be unwholesome, and in particular to produce bronchocele, from the prevalence of that disease in the Alps; but it does not appear upon what principle its insalubrity can depend. The same strumous affection occurs at Sumatra, where ice and snow are never seen; while, on the contrary, the disease is quite unknown in Chili and Thibet, although the rivers of those countries are supplied by the melting of the snow with which the mountains are covered. The same observations will apply to ice water. The trials of Captain Cook, in his voyage round the world, prove its wholesomeness beyond a doubt: in the high southern latitudes, he found a salutary supply of fresh water in the ice of the sea. "This melted ice," says Sir John Pringle, "was not only sweet but soft, and so wholesome as to show the fallacy of human reasoning, unsupported by experiments." When immediately melted, snow water contains no air, as it is expelled during the act of freezing, consequently it is remarkably vapid; but it soon recovers the air it had lost, by exposure to the atmosphere.

1 See a pamphlet entitled. "The Dolphin, or Grand Junction Nuisance, proving that seven thousand families in Westminster, and its suburbs, are supplied with water in a state offensive to the sight, disgusting to the imagination, and destructive to health".

1 Dr. Percival observes, that bricks harden the softest water, and give it an aluminous impregnation; the common practice of lining wells with them is therefore very improper, unless they be covered with cement.

6. Lake Water

Lake Water is a collection of rain, spring, and river waters, contaminated with various animal and vegetable matter, which from its stagnant nature have undergone putrefaction in it. This objection may be urged with greater force against the use of water collected in ponds and ditches, and which the inhabitants of some districts are often under the necessity of drinking. I have known an endemic diarrhoea to arise from such a circumstance.