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

COMPOSITION OF WATER. 29 in the Suez Canal, which connects the two, the water has been found to have a salinity of 5 per cent., which is higher than in either sea. Then take the Baltic, a sea not nearly so land-locked as the above two seas, and its density is less than the above two seas, and less even than the ocean, as the Baltic has a salinity of only 3 per cent. The Black Sea and the Caspian Sea have a very much less density than the ocean. The Caspian Sea— that is, the open part of that sea—has a salinity of only 1| per cent., but an adjacent gulf (called Kara Borgas) has the enormous density of 28 per cent, of saline matter. Take again the Dead Sea, whose density is very great, having about 22 per cent, of saline matter in solution. 21. It appears strange that in two seas like the Caspian and the Dead Seas, the Caspian (in its open part) should have a density so slight, whilst the Dead Sea has a density so great. These two seas are not very far distant from each other, or very different in latitude, and both have large rivers pouring into them, yet they are very different in their composition, or rather strength, for the extra salinity in the Dead Sea, and in the side lake (Kara Borgas) of the Caspian is practically all common salt, or chloride of sodium. 22. These comparisons of salinity will be found useful in estimating what feed water has to be provided when working a sea-water distilling apparatus, as will be shown later on, when dealing with the apparatus in detail. (c) Salt Wells. 23. Besides distillation of the water from inland seas, distilling apparatus is sometimes required for distilling well water in districts—e.g., in Australia—when the-