[Footnote: Read lately before the Manchester Literary and Philosophical
Society]
By THOMAS KAY, President of the Stockport Natural History Society.
The author called attention to the absence of research in this
direction, and how man, endowed to overcome every physical disability
which encompassed him on land, was powerless to live on the wide ocean,
although it is teeming with life.
The water for experiment was taken from the English Channel, about
fifty miles southwest of the Eddystone Lighthouse, and it was found
to correspond closely with the analysis of the Atlantic published by
Roscoe, viz.: Total solids 35.976, of which the total chlorides, are
32.730, representing 19.868 of chlorine.
The waters of the Irish Sea and the English Channel nearer to the German
Ocean, from their neighborhood to great rivers, are weaker than the
above.
Schweitzer's analysis of the waters of the English Channel, near
Brighton, was taken as representing the composition of the sea, and is
here given:
Sodium chloride 27.059
Potassium " 0.766
Magnesium " 3.666
" bromide 0.029
" sulphate 2.296
Calcium " 1.406
" carbonate 0.033
Iodine and ammoniacal salts traces
Water 964.795
________
1000.000