XXXIII. Some experiments and researches on the saline contents of sea-water, undertaken with a view to correct and improve its chemical analysis

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Abstract
In a paper on the temperature and saltness of various seas, which the Royal Society did me the honour to publish in their Transactions for the year 1819, I threw out a conjecture, that the sea might contain minute quantities of every substance in nature, which is soluble in water. For the ocean having communication with every part of the earth through the rivers, all of which ultimately pour their waters into it; and soluble substances, even such as are theoretically incom­patible with each other, being almost in every instance capable of co-existing in solution, provided the quantities be very minute, I could see no reason why the ocean should not be a general receptacle of all bodies which can be held in solution. And although it will appear from the following account, that I have been unsuccessful in some of my attempts to prove the truth of this conjecture, it may fairly be ascribed either to a want of sufficient accuracy in our present methods of chemical analysis, or of the requisite degree of skill in the operator. Some time after the communication to which I have just referred, an extraordinary statement was pointed out to me, upon the authority of Rouelle, a French chemist of the last century, from which it appeared that mercury was contained in sea salt: and I saw soon after in the ‘ Annales du Musée ,' Vol. VII. a paper by the celebrated chemist Proust, who, in a great measure, confirmed that statement, by announcing that he had found traces of mercury in all the specimens of marine acid which he had examined.

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