Close to the Sprudel, and under the same canopy, boils up in prodigious quantities, the Louisenquelle. The basin is of a large oval form, and contains several springs within itself. It disgorges 27,056 cubic inches of water per minute! It is in perpetual agitation, like its neighbour the Sprudel, and serves exclusively for bathing. The carbonic acid gas boils up in large and innumerable bubbles, with considerable noise. It appears turbid in the basin, but is perfectly clear in a glass. The taste is quite as pleasant as that of the Franzensquelle, but without the after-taste of ink produced by the latter source.
Contents.—⅑th of a grain of silex—4 grs. of bicarbonate of soda-¼ of a gr. of carbonate of iron—1¼ gr. carb. lime—16 grs. sulphate of soda—5 grs. muriate of soda—total 27 grains, with 24½ cubic inches of carbonic acid gas in the pint. It may be stated that the waters of Franzensbad are used externally as baths—cold, tepid, or warm, in all the diseases and disorders for which the same waters are used internally.
P. S.—Since the above was written I have received the following information from a most talented pupil of St. George’s Hospital (Mr. Spitta), respecting a new source which had not been quite in operation when I visited Franzensbad.
“One source yet remains to be noticed, of recent date truly, but still by no means to be overlooked—the Weisenquelle, or Source de la Prairie. It is situated still further eastward of the Franzensquelle than the Salzquelle; and is principally remarkable for containing a small quantity of sulphur in the form of sulphuretted hydrogen gas.
Drs. Kœstler and Palliardi have each published a small paper on its virtues.
It contains the most salt of any of the wells at Franzensbad. In sixteen ounces there are 25.6554 grains of sulphate of soda—9.3254 of chloride of sodium—8.9787 of bicarbonate of soda—besides carbonates of lime, magnesia, iron, (.1780 gr.) magnesia, stronthian and lithion, phosphate of lime, subphosphate of alumina, and silica, each in small quantities; together with .0588 of a peculiar salt termed by Zembsch the analyst, “quellsaures eisenoxydul,” or oxide of iron in combination with an acid peculiar to this well—making in all 46.6903 grains of saline matter.
This source gives off a great quantity of carbonic acid, and when you approach it the well-known odour of sulphuretted hydrogen is immediately recognised.
According to the same chemist, Zembsch, 16 ounces contain 30.691 grs. of free carbonic acid, and .162 gr. of sulphuretted hydrogen. Its medicinal properties are like the other springs, aperient and antacid, but from its containing so much salt, and so little iron, it forms a sort of intermediate spring between the Salzquelle, which has the merest trace, and the Franzensquelle, which contains about one third of a grain of that metal in the pint.
It is not so much employed as the other springs; so that its specific effects dependent on the sulphur it contains have not as yet been very distinctly observed.”