Visualising water quality

Water crystals: making the quality of water visible

Andreas Schulz  
Edinburgh, UK: Floris Books | 2005 | 192 pp | ?20.00 (SB) | ISBN 0863154867  

Reviewed by Michael Prater 

This book describes crystal analysis, a technique claimed in the early 1990s to show the quality of water and other substances in a visual way for non-scientists. It is not a method of chemical analysis - no ingredients are measured - but a method of observing the overall nature and ’inner structure’ of water samples.  

The electron microscope images on which this book is based were obtained under controlled scientific conditions, described by the author, from water samples collected around the globe.  

Samples from the Rhine, the Danube, Venice, the Ganges, Lake Baikal, the Great Lakes, the Nile, New Zealand (claimed to be the purest water in the world) and Australia are among those examined in detail. 

The quality of the water samples is estimated from visual analysis of the crystal structures (especially the shape and angles of crystals). Information could be gathered about the pollutant levels, even though no individual pollutants could be identified.  

This book, first published in German as Wasser Kristall Welten in 2003, deserves the wider readership that this new English version will provide. It goes beyond science to deal with the ’energy content’ of water and other influences almost spiritual in nature. But, after all, water is the ultimate life force.