A Practical Manual On Sea Water Distillation
With A Description Of The Necessary Machinery For The Process

COMPOSITION OF WATER. 19 of common salt, to which is attributable the saline taste of sea water, there are sulphates of lime and magnesia, these being the most in evidence, but there are also traces, more or less pronounced, of a large number of other salts, including salts of aluminium, iron, lithium, bromine, zinc, and even the precious metals, silver and gold. These precious metals are, however, present in such small pro- portions that any hope of extracting the free metal with financial success is very chimerical. It has, however, been considered with some seriousness, and the plan of opera- tions suggested was to deal with the brine escaping from large distilling installations, such as exist at Aden and elsewhere. By the further evaporation of the brine, it was proposed either to get salt crystals, or a very con- centrated solution of brine that could then be treated with chemicals, so as to obtain the free metals. Up to the present, however, it would appear that the cost of treating the saline matter in sea water, with a view to obtaining gold, is out of all proportion to the very small quantity of gold derivable from carrying out the process. Sea water, or brine, otherwise called bittern, is used as a source for obtaining bromine. Ordinary Saline Matter. 0. For practical purposes of sea water distillation, all salts, other than those that are present in appreciable quantities, may be ignored. The following Table B gives the analysis of a specimen of sea water taken from the English Channel, which was selected as an average sample of sea water.