The Puriri Mineral Water.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3066, 12 December 1878, Page 2

The Puriri Mineral Water.

Now that Messrs Kelly and Fi*sei hare introduced the Puriri water; to the public, it may not be out of place to republish Mr A. J. Allbm's account of the spring as given in his "Holiday Trip to Maungafau'ari " written six years ago. In justice to Mr Allom we may also stale that he was the first to demonstrate its usefulness as a beverage and valuable mineral water by having it cerated and bottled in the ordinary manner, and his description of the spring has been appropriated without acknowledgment'of; its source by Mr Skey, Government Analyst; in a paper on the " Mineral Waters o( New Zealand," which appears in the last volume of " Transactions of the New! Zealand. Institute:" j . About a mile and a half from Cay' 3, there may be seen an interesting mineral spring, which will well repay a visit. As we are not aware that it has ever been described, we devoted some time io Ls examination. On approaching the spring from Say's, a white, somewhat elevated patch strikes the eye. At a distance of half a mile, it is very conspicuous Jn the surrounding fern and swampy land, and looks not unlike a deposit of guano as seen sometimes on the coast. Turning aside to inspect, a few yards through the fern on the left hand side of the track, we found ourselves on a hard, whitish, ovalshaped mound of calcareous matter, about fifty feet in length, and thirty-five feet wide, and of generally level surface. The ■western end of the ellipse slopes gently away to some low, boggy land, green with raupo, toe-toe, and convolvulus. The! other end is level with the harder and higher ferny surface of a. low,! flat spur from, the neighboring ranges, and at this end is an oval-shaped h le, about six feet by five, and tliree and a half feet deep, but contracting regularly downward like a. funnel. The bottom is a mere tube of>bout three inches, in diameter, down which a stick was thrust to a depth of eight feet from the surface. The hole is full of cold, clear, bubbling water, which overflows by a gutter about two inches deep and three inchei wide, sunk in tbe hard crutt of the mound and coursing outwards to its western extremity, where the small rill of water 1 loses,.itself in the swamp. Bubbles of gas continuously ascend in three or four columns from,the bottom of the hole, and! burst on the surface in rapid succession.; The water has the pleasant, brisk, and alkaline taste of sodawater, and has evidently built up.by, its continuous dei positions of the calcareous matter which it holds in solution, the whole of the white-.orusted mound which surrounds the podl. , \'■ „ ,- j It may jpsiat the imagination of the reader if, fle fancy i ; ,painter's palette; magnified to a diameter' of fifty feet and placed on a low Btpce of New Zealand swamp and fern. ,>The palette will represent the white mound formed by the calcareous incrustation, the thumbhole the bubbling suing. -^A .wavy line drawn from the tnumb-hole to the further extremity of the palette is the gutter by which the overflow escapes. " The deposit irom the water is of two distinct kinds—the principal calcareous] and forming the bulk Of the surrounding inciUßtation; the other is soluble iv water, has a caustic taste, and is found inly during dry weather »s a recent white efflorescence caused; by exposure to the air, or as little starry groups of crystals in the water of the gutter (soda?). 1 rbe water is highly charged with carbonic »cid gas—as much as five ounces by me?,, sure of this gas having been obtained Tom a soda-water bottle full of the water. Fhat both water and carbonic acid gas [otherwise." foul air " or " choke-damp ")' sxist deep in the earth's crust, is a fact yell known to every miner on the Thames. Deeper still than our mines have peneirated, what water there is must be under 1 great pressure, and thus rendered capajle of absoibing a very large quantity of he gas. When thus supercharged with jas, it has the faculty of dissolving car. lonate of lime in considerable quantity, md if it comes in contact with that subitance underground will rapidly take it nto solution. Suppose now the Water, iharged to excess with carbonic acid gas, md thereby holding carbonate of lime in olution, to force its way to the surface of he ground. The pressure is taken off; he gas escapes bubbling at the spring; nd since the lime can no longer be held lissolved, it deposits itself wherever the iecarbonized water runs from its founain. Such a deposit is formed in New Zealand around many a less fascinating pring than that of Puriri, and we have

found at such places mossy and other incrustations which rival the similarly grown travertine of Europe. Tlirea other little bubbling springs were found in the immediate vicinity, all very small, and not one having any zone of incrus* tation.

Until a proper chemical analysis shall have been made, it is impossible to form an opinion of the value of this spring as a medicinal agent. That its mineral, gaseous, and' other constituents possess some valuable properties,! should thjnk there Cm be little doubt; and when these are better, known, it is possibl^vthat the medical men of the Thames and elsewhere may be .-.-not unwilling»to recommend; its use to their patients in certain diseases for which it may be founJ-beneficial.