Revietos — Artesian Waters of Australia. 227 



of Iowa and Texas are shown to contain carbonates (chiefly of soda), 

 and the artesian waters of the Cretaceous basin of Alabama also 

 contain considerable quantities of alkaline carbonates. In any case 

 it is unnecessary to go to any plutonic depths to discover the source 

 of the alkaline carbonates in the Australian basin, and he points out 

 the probable presence of felspars in the porous sandstones from which 

 much of the water is derived. We might quote an instance much 

 nearer home, viz. that of the artesian wells in the Chalk under London, 

 where the soda salts (including carbonates) are said to increase with 

 the depth of the bore. It appears that the presence of zinc in the 

 well at Toowoomba was due to artificial contamination — not that 

 the small amount discovered, even if the result of natural causes, 

 could have been accepted as evidence of the plutonic origin of the 

 water. 



(2) The cause of the ascent of the water in the flowing wells. 

 This, according to Professor Gregory, is due to the internal heat of 

 the earth and roch pressure. The discussion on this latter subject 

 raises some points of interest. He remarks that attention was first 

 called to the importance of rock pressure in reference to flowing 

 wells by Mr. Robert Hay. Mr. Pittman points out that it is an 

 old theory, and was thought to have been disposed of by Arago early 

 in the nineteenth century. But we may observe that there always 

 has been a recrudescence of heterodoxy in all branches of human 

 thought, so that it is not surprising to learn of others in Australia, 

 like Mr. F. B. Gipps, advocating this view. On the whole, the 

 weight of authority, especially in America, is against the rock- 

 pressure theory, and an important official in that country, apropos of 

 the Kansas flowing wells, writes to Mr. Pittman as follows : — " Bock 

 pressure as a cause of artesian flows has been advocated by several 

 geologists besides Mr. Robert Hay, but has never been supported by 

 any real evidence, and has never received official sanction, nor has it 

 been generally accepted by careful private investigators. In fact, it 

 should be regarded simply as a suggestion advanced to explain flows 

 for which no other cause was known at the time." 



Both Mr. Pittman and Professor Gregory agree in deploring the 

 waste of artesian waters throughout Australia. It seems probable 

 that even under the hydrostatic theory those portions of the basin 

 furthest from the intake must be, to a certain extent, dependent on 

 previous accumulations. If this is the case the Australian borer, 

 though not living entirely on his capital like the coal-miner, is using 

 up resources which cannot immediately be replaced. 



In a postscript Mr. Pittman points out that the rocks termed 

 Triassic in this paper include the lower water-bearing sandstone (of 

 fresh-water origin) of the great Australian artesian basin. In Queens- 

 land they are known as the Trias-Jura, and are there overlain in 

 places by the Blythesdale Braystone, a porous marine sandstone, 

 which forms the basal bed of the Lower Cretaceous system. This 

 formation is not known to occur in New South Wales, where the 

 artesian water occurs in the older Triassic (or Trias-Jura) sandstones, 



W. H. H. 



