85 



NOTES ON MINERAL SPRINGS OF NORTH-WEST 



COAST. 



By T. Stephens, M.A., F.G.S. 



(Read August 12, 1912.) 



The earliest mention of thes€ springs is in a letter from 

 Count de Strzelecki, dated about 1840, and published 

 among the papers of the Tasmanian Society.^" Of their 

 constituents Strzelecki says: — "They belong to the class 

 of carbonated waters, containing carbonic acid gas, 

 muriatic acid gas, carbonate of soda, chloride of sodium, 

 sulphate of soda or magnesia, oxide of iron in the state 

 of a peroxide, and a slight indication of lime. From this 

 examination, and from exjoerience, I am led to believe that 

 they are aperient and tonic ; they are also sufficiently dis- 

 gusting to the palate to pass for highly medicinal.'' 



Some thirty years ago I was travelling from Circular 

 Head to Smithton, on departmental business, accompanied 

 by an officer of the Police Department. On our return 

 journey we turned aside to inspect some mineral springs re- 

 ported to exist near Deep Creek, not far from where it 

 falls into Duck Bay. The country is mostly level or 

 slightly undulating, and at the time was quite open, the 

 scrub, consisting chiefly of dwarf tea tree, having been 

 burnt ofT. On getting near the creek we noticed two or 

 three mounds rising about seven or eight feet above the 

 ground level, and on climbing to the top of one of them we 

 found a spring of clear water gushing freely from an open- 

 ing a few inches in diameter, and spreading itself over the 

 loosely compacted brownish rock of which the mound was 

 composed. The whole formation was nothing more than a 

 deposit of calcareous tufa, or travertine, fonned chiefly by 

 the precipitation of the lime contained in the water of the 

 spring on exposure to the air, the deposit of lime carbonate 

 being largely increased by mosses and small plants, which 

 facilitated the decomposition of the carbonic acid in the 

 water. In this way the whole of the little mound had 

 been gradually built up. 



*Tasmanian Journal, Vol. I., page 77 



