63 



in the properties of their water, as per analyses supplied me by- 

 Mr. A. Thomas, F.C.S. :— 



I. At Kailway Station. II. At Inn. 



Sulphates.. 0-62 0-48 



Chlorides . . 5-60 11-20 



Total grains per gallon . . 6-22 11-68 



This difference leads me to infer that the supply is derived from 

 totally separate local sources ; I say local, because iu neither 

 case can the supply be derived from the general source or 

 reservoir from which the wells of the lower plain are supplied, 

 the water level of which is, at least, forty feet lower in the 

 series than either. 



As we approach the hills a very different phenomenon is 

 presented. In no instance — unless from winter soakage at the 

 outlets from the hills of a few gullies — have any previous 

 attempts to procure water by sinking into the so-called drifts 

 been successful. About twenty or twenty-one years ago the 

 Hon. Thomas Hogarth put down two shafts in Section 4,151 ; 

 also about the same time the late Mr. Alexander Cullan put 

 one down in Section 3,205 (reference to map of the district 

 will show that Mr. Hogarth's and Mr. Cnllan's trial shafts 

 were distant, as the crow flies, from each other about four and 

 a quarter miles), and in each case — twice by the former and 

 once by the latter — were the variegated clays of the formation 

 pierced at a depth of about eighty feet. In subter-position to 

 this eighty feet of calcareo-argillaceous material was found a 

 semi-consolidated white-yellow siliceous sandstone, and though 

 I am not prepared to state to what depth it was penetrated in 

 the late Mr. Cullan's shaft (not less than twenty-five to thirty 

 feet), yet the Hon. T. Hogarth informs me that in one instance 

 on his estate at Smithfield it was perforated to a depth of 

 forty feet without any visible sign of change. No tvell, in the 

 true sense of the term, can be obtained in this exceedingly 

 permeable stratum until a more impervious material is reached ; 

 which in all likelihood will not be at less depth than 170 feet. 

 But because the nearer we approach the hills the more saline 

 the character of the water becomes, I venture to predict that 

 the water obtainable from this source will be nearly as salt as 

 the sea itself. However, the effect of this buried sandbank is 

 to produce a comparatively waterless subterranean tract skirt- 

 ing the base of the Munno Para Hills. 



The Origin of the Drift. — Let us now briefly inquire into the 

 nature of the agency to which these beds owe their deposition. 

 It has been advanced by our esteemed friend Professor Tate, of 

 the Adelaide University, that our South Australian Drifts owe 

 their deposition to ice action. And why not ? But before the 

 mind can be persuaded to accept that theory it must be pre- 



