448 Travsactions. — Chemistry. 



This water, therefore, appears of such a character that we can hardly 

 expect it to have any marked therapeutic quahties. 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 

 district, was collected in January, 1875, by Mr. Charles Traill, who states 

 that it is deemed a specific for diarrhoea. 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 

 Pharmacopoeia. 



Art. LXVI. — On the Result of an Examination of certain of our Manganese 



Ores for Cobalt. 

 By William Skey, Analyst to the Geological Survey 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 comparatively 

 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 a^Dpeared 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 opportunity might have been lost for guiding mining opera- 



