"A noble Nitro Sulphurious Spa"

"A noble Nitro Sulphurious Spa"

Lough Derg--Travelogue--Dublin--Journey

An eighteenth-century treatise describing a trip from Dublin to Lough Derg

Isaac Butler, 1689–1755

Butler, Isaac, A Journey to Lough Derg, p. 136

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

c.1745

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a project of University College, Cork. Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber.

Citation for the purposes of criticism

Electronic text transcription

English

Travelogue

DD_0557

54.543487,-7.825197

https://celt.ucc.ie//published/E740000-001

"A Mile South East from [Pettigo], near the East Bank of a small River is a noble Nitro Sulphurious Spa, reputed a grand Antiscorbutic a good purger of watry Humours & a speedy remedy for the Cholic. Numbers resort hither who meet with Success in those Disorders. The Water is limpid of a whitish Cast, but intollerably fetid, in Smell & Taste not much unlike rotten Eggs mixed with the washing of a foul Gun barrel, the Sides of the Well are covered with a white Crustation, some blades of Grass found in the Well were tinged with a Copper Colour. By an Infusion of Galls it was changed into a thick muddy blackish Whey Colour, it left a great Sediment on the Sides & Bottom of the Glass & seemd to dissolve the scraping of ye Galls: the Infusion of Logwood turned it into a deep purple, a Silver Sixpence in 15 minutes was changed into a deep Yellow inclining to black & continued so for several Days, several persons send for this Water."

Austin Cooper, A Journey to Lough Derg in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Ed. [Royal Irish Academy]. , Dublin , University Press (1892) volume 22 page 13–24; 126–136