The London and Country Brewer | Page 9

Food: Now the more simple and freer every water is from foreign Particles, the better it will answer those Ends and Purposes; for, as Dr.Mead observes, some waters are so loaded with stony Corpuscles, that even the Pipes thro' which they are carried, in time are incrusted and stopt up by them, and is of that petrifying nature as to breed the Stone in the Bladder, which many of the Parisians have been instances of, by using this sort of water out of the River Seine. And of this Nature is another at Rowel in Northamptonshire, which in no great distance of time so clogs the Wheel of an overshot Mill there, that they are forced with, convenient Instruments to cut way for its Motion; and what makes it still more evident, is the sight of those incrusted Sides of the Tea-kettles, that the hard Well-waters are the occasion of, by being often boiled in them: And it is further related by the same Doctor, that a Gentlewoman afflicted with frequent returns of violent Colick Pains was cured by the Advice of Van Helmont, only by leaving off drinking Beer brewed with Well-water; It's true, such a fluid has a greater force and aptness to extract the tincture out of Malt, than is to be had in the more innocent and soft Liquor of Rivers: But for this very reason it ought not, unless upon meer necessity, to be made use of; this Quality being owing to the mineral Particles and alluminous Salts with which it is impregnated. For these waters thus saturated, will by their various gravities in circulation, deposit themselves in one part of the animal Body or other, which has made some prove the goodness of Water by the lightness of its body in the Water Scales, now sold in several of the London Shops, in order to avoid the Scorbutick, Colicky, Hypochondriack, and other ill Effects of the Clayey and other gross Particles of stagnating Well-waters, and the calculous Concretions of others; and therefore such waters ought to be mistrusted more than any, where they are not pure clear and soft or that don't arise from good Chalks or stony Rocks, that are generally allowed to afford the best of all the Well sorts.
Spring-waters are in general liable to partake of those minerals thro' which they pass, and are salubrious or mischievous accordingly. At Uppingham in Rutland, their water is said to come off an Allum-rock, and so tints their Beer with its saline Quality, that it is easily tasted at the first Draught. And at Dean in Northamptonshire, I have seen the very Stones colour the rusty Iron by the constant running of a Spring-water; but that which will Lather with Soap, or such soft water that percolates through Chalk, or a Grey Fire-stone, is generally accounted best, for Chalks in this respect excell all other Earths, in that it administers nothing unwholsome to the perfluent waters, but undoubtedly absorps by its drying spungy Quality any ill minerals that may accompany the water that runs thro' them. For which reason they throw in, great Quantities of Chalk into their Wells at Ailsbury to soften their water, which coming off a black Sand-stone, is so hard and sharp that it will often turn their Beer sour in a Week's time, so that in its Original State it's neither fit to Wash nor Brew with, but so long as the Alcalous soft Particles of the Chalk holds good, they put it to both uses.
River-waters are less liable to be loaded with metallick, petrifying, saline and other insanous Particles of the Earth, than the Well or Spring sorts are, especially at some distance from the Spring-head, because the Rain water mixes with and softens it, and are also much cured by the Sun's heat and the Air's power, for which reason I have known several so strict, that they won't let their Horses drink near the first rise of some of them; this I have seen the sad Effects of, and which has obliged me to avoid two that run cross a Road in Bucks and Hertfordshire: But in their runnings they often collect gross Particles from ouzy muddy mixtures, particularly near Town, that make the Beer subject to new fermentations, and grow foul upon alteration of weather as the Thames water generlly does; yet is this for its softness much better than the hard sort, however both these waters are used by some Brewers as I shall hereafter observe; but where a River-water can be had clear in a dry time, when no great Rain has lately fell out of Rivulets or Rivers that have a Gravelly, Chalky, Sandy or Stone-bottom free from the Disturbance of Cattle, &c. and in good Air, as that of Barkhamstead St.