A Letter to Dr. Rutty, R. S. Secr. Giving a Farther Account of the Nature and Virtues of the Holt-Waters, from the Reverend Mr. J. Lewis, Vicar of the Place

If I find you pardon this Liberty I have taken by this, it will encourage me to transmit several Experiments and Observations I have lately made, remaining with the utmost Sincerity, Most Reverend Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant, F. Triewald, Director of Mechanicks in the Kingdom of Sweden. II. A Letter to Dr. Rutty, R. S. Secr. giving a farther Account of the Nature and Virtues of the Holt-Waters, from the Reverend Mr. J. Lewis, Vicar of the Place. Sir, In a Letter I received lately from Mr. Brome, he gave me an Account that he had communicated to you a Paper of mine, relating to the Mineral Waters at Holt; and that you had sent it to the Press among the Philosophical Memoirs of the Royal Society; which I was pleased to hear, because I hoped it might be a Means to raise the Esteem of the Waters, and recommend them to the good Opinion of the learned World. He likewise informed me, that you was willing to enquire into some further Particulars relating to those Waters. This Intimation of yours to Mr. Brome has drawn upon you the Trouble of this Paper; being willing to make known, as far as lies in me, the excellent Virtues of these Waters, of which I have been an Eye-witness for several Years in many extraordinary Cures. Experience has proved them of admirable Efficacy in Scorbutick and Scrophulous Cases: wherein they have done such Wonders, that a short Account which was published of their Cures in that Kind, about five Years ago, was looked upon by some, rather as a romantick Tale, than a true Narrative of real Facts. They are of an attenuating, astringent and drying Nature: And by these Qualities, I imagine, they perform their Cures. The first is the known Property of all Water, to dilute the Blood, and thin the Juices, and thereby to fit them to pass the fine Strainers, and be carried out of the Body by their proper Drains. In the Second consists the great Excellence of Holt-Water, which, by its notable Astringency, braces the Solids, stimulates the Fibres, and quickens their contractile Power, and thereby enables them to shake off, protrude and squeeze out such Feculencies, as may adhere to, clog and stuff them up. And this Quality, it is probable, they derive from the Allom and Iron that are supposed to impregnate them. The Ingredients, which give them their drying, absorbing and healing Quality, are the Sulphur and Ochre; by which they imbibe the peccant Humours, and sheath the sharp Salts, that lance and tear the finer Glands, and cause Blotches, and Ulcerations. As they attenuate and astringe, they are a noble Diuretick, removing Obstructions from the Kidneys, and causing the Renal Glands to make their due Secretions, and at the same Time Time dissolving the grosser Salts, and fitting them to be carried off through the Urinary Passages. These Waters have been found of excellent Avail in many other Illnesses, besides the Scurvy and Evil: But I forbear mentioning any other Cases, lest I trespass against good Manners, by making my first Visit too long. I am with all due Respect, SIR, Your very humble and obedient Servant, Holt, Dec. 16. 1728. John Lewis. III. A further Account of a new Machine, called the Marine Surveyor, designed for the Measurement of the Way of a Ship at Sea, more correctly than by the Log, at present in Use, or any other Method hitherto invented for that Purpose. By Mr. Henry de Saumarez, of the Island of Guernsey, Part of his Majesty's antient Dutchy of Normandy. HAVING given an Account of my Projection for ascertaining the Run of a Ship at Sea, which has appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. xxxiii, for the Months of November and December 1725; as also in those for the Months of March and April 1726;