42 On the Supply of Water 



as it does through one of the most populous and successful 

 gold mining districts at Ballaarat, it has become so charged 

 with finely comminuted particles of clay, held in suspension, 

 of an unusually persistent character, from the gold-washing 

 and puddling operations, and which I find do not subside even 

 on its reaching the Barwon river, with which it intermixes 

 on its course to the ocean border, and at a distance probably 

 not much short of one hundred miles, taking into account its 

 many tortuous and capricious meanderings through the bush, 

 it is still foul with extraneous matter, next to impossible to 

 arrest, even by the finest filtering media. 



Finding the Barwon above its confluence with the Yarrawee 

 apparently pure to the eye, almost transparent, but palpably 

 not so to the palate, being highly charged with saline matter, 

 impregnated, no doubt, by having its course over, or inter- 

 mixing with, the numerous saliferous springs which there 

 abound. 



Whilst on the subject of saliferous springs, I trust it will 

 not be considered out of place, or an unpardonable digression 

 on my part, to make a few remarks thereon, en passant, seeing 

 that, as is well known to every settler, they abound in this 

 colony, leaving the toil-worn traveller no alternative but to 

 partake of them, however nauseous the draught, which but 

 turns out to him a Tantalus cup, and instead of the expected 

 pure water, he of necessity has to partake so far of epsom 

 salts and damper for breakfast, or damper and epsom salts for 

 dinner; so vice versa. » 



I doubt not but it may have come under the observation 

 of many, that most of the large as well as smaller salt lagoons 

 are cup-like in formation, which I believe to be caused by a 

 gradual sinking of the outer crust of the earth, as the saliferous 

 springs bring the brine to the surface, and which have found 

 their way thither by " faults in the flag," caused possibly by 

 slight shocks of earthquakes in time past. 



To make this theory more readily understood to those who 

 may not have had any experience in mining, more par- 

 ticularly Salt mining, I shall further explain what I mean by 

 the " flag." It is a term generally used by the miners in 

 Europe for a very hard earthy matter, of about two feet thick, 

 at some sixty, or it may be a hundred, yards from the surface 

 of the earth, under which the upper strata of rock salt is gene- 

 rally found, varying in thickness from ten to fifteen yards. Brine 

 is made by the passing of water (percolating from a higher 

 level) over this bed, and, becoming saturated with the rock, 



