Waters
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Mineral, water containing considerable mineral matter in solution. Absolutely pure water is so rare that in one sense of the word, all waters are mineral. Hard water is understood to be water that has taken up appreciable quantities of lime or magnesium. Teakettles in which hard waters are boiled become encrusted with a mineral deposit. Ocean water is a mineral water, being so impregnated with salt as to be called salt water. Mineral waters, so called, may be artificial or natural. Ordinary aerated waters are made by charging water with from two to four times its own volume of carbonic acid gas derived from the action of vitriol on chalk. The charged water is corked tightly until desired for use. Ordinary water thus aerated is popularly described as "sodawater," although soda is seldom present in the beverage. Many distilled or pure waters are aerated and sold under a variety of names. Natural mineral waters are obtained from springs. They have absorbed mineral ingredients from the rocks through which they flow. Some of the most celebrated are Apollinaris, from a spring in the valley of the Ahr in Prussia, containing salt, carbon, soda, and lime; Vichy, an alkaline water, from springs at the foot of the volcanic Auvergne Mountains of France; waters from springs at Carlsbad, Germany, are taken as a remedy for rheumatism, gout, catarrh, and overweight; and waters from Seltzer in Nassau have been counterfeited until the term is as meaningless as soda-water. American waters of at least local note are those of Blue Lick, Kentucky; Ballston, Saratoga, and Sharon Springs, New York ; Crab Orchard, Kentucky; Bethesda water of Waukesha, Wisconsin; Buffalo lithia water of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, etc. Cologne water is a perfume. The sulphur waters of Hot Springs , Arkansas, are noted for the cure of rheumatism and skin diseases. See Aix-La-Chapelle ; Hot Springs
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 list of "celebrated" waters was written when drinking or bathing in a named spring was mainstream medicine; the claim that Carlsbad water cures "rheumatism, gout, catarrh, and overweight" would not survive a modern label review. Lithia waters like the Buffalo water of Mecklenburg County were later found to contain only trace lithium, and American medical opinion abandoned spa cures between the wars — Hot Springs, Arkansas, became a national park in 1921 and Saratoga's springs a New York state reservation, valued as resorts and heritage rather than clinics. The soda fountain chemistry has gone too: carbon dioxide is now an industrial by-product, not gas struck off chalk with vitriol at the point of use. Bottled water itself, far from a niche of invalids, is now a global multi-billion-dollar trade, and by the mid-2010s it outsold carbonated soft drinks by volume in the United States.
Written for this edition, 2026.