1855.] Report on the Kooloo iron Mines. 201 



which they ornament their heads, with an elegance truly remark- 

 able, give to the frequent assemblies of their rural merry-makings, 

 that character of simplicity and artless coquetry, which brings to 

 the mind the language of the heart of the bucolics of Virgil and 

 of the Idylles of Theocritus. 



Independently of the principal spring of Munnikurn, there exist 

 many others over an area of about i of a mile, the whole length of 

 the village. Their temperature is not so high, because they mix 

 with neighbouring cold streams. The natives have taken advantage 

 of this circumstance to construct baths, the keeping of which is 

 entrusted to people who praise the curative virtues of the water 

 with the prophetic language of true believers; this preamble of 

 praises is addressed with still more fervour to European travellers 

 to invite them to bathe first, and then to obtain a gratification, the 

 largest possible, but there, as elsewhere, we may write in large let- 

 ters this philosophical maxim, " Jamais la renommee ne se reduit a 

 la verite." 



When we fix our attention on the creation of this vast silicious 

 deposit, bordering the two sides of the Parbutty, in the Munnikurn 

 valley, and especially its right side, where the hot springs are, we 

 must admit that a powerful chemical action has been in force dur- 

 ing this deposit, and that action can only be attributed to the mine- 

 ral waters, which appear to have played an important part at a time 

 when their temperature was much higher than it is at present, and 

 their volume much more considerable. At present it is no longer 

 the same ; we have but a weak manifestation of an action, which has 

 been at some distant period of great power : the waters in a length 

 of time leave but a thin and limited bed of carbonate of lime. 

 However the brilliant researches made in Europe in the case of 

 deposits of different ages made by the same spring, have proved in 

 the most evident manner, that the mineral waters had changed 

 their nature several times, and that they had at one time abuu- 

 dantly deposited substances, which at present they no longer con- 

 tain. The theory of these researches founded on facts, is in all pro- 

 bability, applicable to the Munnikurn thermal springs : the silicious 

 deposit would have been its first work, which has been succeeded 

 by the limited deposit of ferruginous travertine of the present 



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