Scum and Villainy

Operating a machine in the 19th century was wretched business. If you were working in one of the early textile manufacturing plants, you might be next to a very hot, very loud machine that wove threads of fabric into cloth, or—like the Jacquard Loom—maybe it automatically wove an ornate design directly into the fabric by way of early punch cards.

The Jacquard loom was no ordinary loom. Named after its creator, Joseph Marie Jacquard, this loom was a marvel of its time, bringing an unprecedented level of automation to the textile industry. It utilized a series of punch cards, each card filled with holes that corresponded to a series of commands. As these punch cards were fed into the loom, the pattern encoded in the cards would be 'read' by the machine, instructing the loom on which threads to lift to create intricate patterns in the fabric.

This steam machine set the stage for binary computing and punch cards in the 20th century, but workers on the oppressively hot factory lines probably didn’t feel as though they were peering into a sexy digital future.

As bad as it was for the workers, it was also frustrating and nerve-racking for investors who owned these machines.

For one thing, they were always breaking down.

Steam meant water, and water meant that there were lots of pipes in steam engines. One major issue was that mineral deposits in the water itself could cling to any residue on the sides of the pipes, creating a gradually more narrow passageway as crud built up all around.

This was like a clogged artery, and it could lead to catastrophic failure with the machines. A powerful steam engine could build up tremendous pressure behind a clogged pipe, and an artillery-like explosion could kill and maim workers while blowing away entire walls in some cases.

If you had thrown your family’s fortune behind a factory that was supposed to turn threads into cloth that you could sell, you really, really wanted the factory to run all the time. If a machine broke and was inoperable for a week, then a quarter of your output had just evaporated.

This issue with water was serious, then. It certainly warranted a great deal of economic attention, given that virtually all steam-driven factories would break down for this same reason. It also demanded even more attention due to the increasing human cost. Something needed to be done.

It didn’t take long for the owners of these machines (and their brave, skilled operators) to discover scaling inside the pipes and kettles. This could be scraped away to increase arterial flow, leading to the machines lasting longer.

At the same time, folks began to notice that the source of water made a huge difference in how long before this scum and villainy built up.

If the water was drawn from wells, it was a lot more likely to produce this goopy, nasty stuff. A pattern was recognized.

Meanwhile, chemistry was advancing at a blistering pace. It was now possible to test for various compounds, so chemists identified calcium carbonate and magnesium compounds as the culprits for the clogging.

People noticed how difficult it was to create lather from water rich in these mineral deposits. Since hard is a synonym for difficult, engineers began calling this stuff hard water, to create a distinction with regular old water.

Soon, there were charts describing the degree of water hardness. By the turn of the 20th century, testing for water hardness in factories was standard practice. Way fewer workers were killed, and machines ran for much longer and much more reliably.

So far, hard water has been the bad guy of our story. Remember scum and villainy?

But as usual, there’s more. As home brewers reading this no doubt already know, and as

Michael Woudenberg

points out in our shared piece called Ode to Beer:

Water is water is water right? Not in the least! This critical ingredient is actually the reason behind regional beer varieties and the passionate homebrewer can not overlook the significance.

If you taste an IPA, you are certainly tasting (in part) mineral deposits like calcium sulfate. This salt is present in the water at Burton-on-Trent, and breweries around the world have tried to imitate this uniquely flavored water.

If it’s more malty, that could well be because of calcium chloride—another one of those salts that would have been the mortal enemy of machinists of the 19th century.

If you don’t drink booze, you might still appreciate mineral water like Perrier or San Pellegrino. These brands focus entirely on the augmented flavor from specific minerals.

And, of course, there are critters who have adapted to that hard water lifestyle.

Livebearer fish like guppies thrive in mineral-rich areas lined with limestone, and they strongly prefer hard water. Snails need calcium to build their shells, and some types of shrimp will use hard water for molting. Someone’s gotta pay for that new suit!

Out in the oceans, corals are underwater cities where entire species often reside like residents in an enormous apartment building. Over time, you need an awful lot of calcium and magnesium to create something like concrete.

So, it’s fair to say that hard water isn’t all bad. If you’re trying to create lather with soap, I wish you the best of luck. At the same time, we humans (and many other species) have figured out clever ways to put this stuff to use.