448 T'ransactions.— Chemistry. 
This water, therefore, appears of such a character that we can hardly 
expect it to have any marked therapeutic qualities. Though from a thermal 
spring I question the propriety of designating it as a mineral water, that is, 
in any special sense of the term. 
19. Southland. 
A water from Mr. Edmund Gibson's home station, Southland provincial - 
distriet, was collected in January, 1875, by Mr. Charles Traill, who states 
that it is deemed a specific for diarrhea. It is feebly but distinctly 
alkaline, is quite clear, and tasteless. Submitted to a partial analysis, it 
afforded me a quantity of fixed salts, equal to 18:516 grains to the 
gallon, and 7:5 grains of volatile substances (organic matter principally), 
. the rest being ammoniacal salts. There was not sufficient saline matter 
afforded me to allow of their nature being exactly ascertained, but I 
observed a considerable quantity of ferric salts present in it; the bulk of 
these matters were, however, alkaline chlorides and carbonates. It will 
be observed that the organic matter is very high in amount, and it is to 
some astringent principle of this that I am inclined to attribute its potency 
as a specific for the ailment above-mentioned. 
The comparisons with European waters given in this paper are founded 
on the information afforded in Mr. P. Squire’s Companion to the British 
Pharmacopeia. 
Art. LXVI.—On the Result of an Examination of certain of our Manganese 
Ores for Cobalt. 
By Witt Srey, Analyst to the Geological Seva Department. 
(Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 12th January, 1878.] 
In June last I had to estimate the proportion in which cobalt existed in a 
variety of manganese ore from New Caledonia, known as asbolite. This 
~ one, though physically differing in no respect from several of our manganese 
ores, afforded me no less than 7-2 per cent of cobalt, a proportion which 
gives the mineral a considerable market value, cobalt being a padres 
rare metal, and one which is now in much request. 
In consideration of this, therefore, I deemed it highly necessary that an 
especial examination should be made for small quantities of this metal in 
those of our manganese ores which compare most closely with this from New 
.. Caledonia, for it appeared to me as not at all improbable that a little cobalt 
. might have escaped detection by analytical processes, the purpose of which 
had been merely to determine the fundamental character of the ore, and in 
such a case an =e might have been lost for guiding mining opera- 
