Abstract
THE report under notice is a statement of the results obtained from an examination of the water supplies and their gathering grounds and storage reservoirs in twenty-three more or less peaty collecting areas in Yorkshire and Lancashire. The object of the examination was to indicate the origin of the plumbo-solvent nature of these waters, and the best methods of· preventing or counteracting this action before the water was distributed to consumers. Dr. Houston concurs with Mr. Ackroyd and with other chemists who have studied the subject in these districts in attributing the power of dissolving lead in dangerous quantity to the presence in these waters of acids derived from the peat; and he further intimates his belief that the acid is produced from the peat by the action of certain bacteria found in the peat itself. He finds that the acid nature of the water is frequently not indicated by litmus paper or by other ordinary means, but that it is easily ascertained by the change in colour produced in an alcoholic solution of lacmoid.
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C., F. Lead in Peaty Water 1 . Nature 67, 498 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/067498a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/067498a0