432 



E. F. PITTMAN. 



Wales, South Australia and West Australia, all of whom have 

 made a careful study of the subject in the field." 1 



2. Under the heading "V. The Salinity of the Waters," 

 Dr. du Toit states: — 



" Gregory has laid stress upon the presence of small amounts of 

 boric acid in quite a large proportion of the New South Wales 

 waters, and this substance is probably more widely spread, only it 

 has not been looked for. He has regarded this radicle as pointing 

 towards a magmatic origin for the water, and certainly Pittman' $ 

 contention (that its presence is not peculiar, because borates would 

 be contained in salts derived from sea water by evaporation ) is 

 ineffective, because the Jurassic beds are admittedly of freshwater 

 origin. 7 ' 



Anyone reading the above passage would be justified in 

 concluding that I had overlooked the fact that the Jurassic 

 beds were not of marine origin, but Dr. du Toit has com- 

 pletely ignored the following paragraph in my paper: — 



"The fact that the water-bearing beds of the Great Australian 

 Artesian Basin are everywhere overlain by the marine beds of the 

 Rolling Downs Formation suggests a very much simpler, and a 

 very much more probable source for the "trace" of boric acid in 

 the water than the one advanced by Professor Gregory. In all 

 probability a similar trace of boric acid would be found, if care- 

 fully looked for, in almost any water which percolates Mesozoic 

 or Tertiary rocks of marine origin." 2 



3. Under the heading "VII. The absorption and trans- 

 mission of water," Dr. du Toit makes the following remark: 



"Pittman having admitted Gregory's contention that the 

 Blythesdale Braystones will not be porous enough to transmit 

 large enough volumes of water underground, it now remains to 



1 E. F. Pittman, "The Great Australian Artesian Basin and the source 

 of its Water/' 1914, p. 39. 



2 E. F. Pittman, "The Constitution and Porosity of the Intake Beds of 

 the Great Australian Artesian Basin," 1915, p. 10. 



