278 > Mineral Waters of Victoria. 
and Australia and New Zealand were formed from the smaller 
islands now existing in those regions, such as Auckland, 
Campbell, and Macquarrie Islands? The volcanic region, 
mostly submarine, which stretches from the antarctic vol- 
canoes Erebus and Terror to New Zealand, may m some 
respects, be connected with such changes in the level of the 
land during post-tertiary times. 
It is obvious that larger tracts of land than at present 
exist near the South Pole, must have had a remarkably re- 
frigerating effect upon the climate of Australia, especially if 
by such rising the warm equatorial currents which now sur- 
round us on all sides, and even extend their favourable in- 
fluence as far south as Macquarrie Island in 50° latitude, 
were driven back by polar currents. If these cold currents 
reached the southern shores of Australia, surrounding, per- 
haps, New Zealand, as the South Australian current does at 
the present day, and which, without doubt, is the cause of 
the fine climate of the latter; it is easy to account for any 
physical changes in both countries. 
I have been led to forward to you these few, and I fear 
somewhat desultory observations, in order to draw the 
attention of Australian geologists to the study of the physi- 
cal and surface geology of the Alps, which would, I have no 
doubt, reveal important facts, and assist us in connecting the 
glacial epoch with New Zealand, and in unravelling some of 
the causes by which such a remarkable extension of its 
glaciers has been effected. 
Art. XXIT—Parr I.—The Mineral Waters of Victoria, 
By J. Cosmo Newsery, B. Sc., Analyst to the Geological 
Survey of Victoria. 
The analysis of mineral waters is a subject of so much 
interest to those engaged in scientific and economic pursuits, 
that I propose to bring before you, from time to time, the 
results of my investigations in the mineral waters of Vic- 
toria. Before speaking of the subject of the present paper, 
the analysis of waters from a spring at Ballan, and from 
some of the mines of the Maldon district, it may be as 
well to make a few general remarks upon the chemical action 
of water on the crust of the earth. A certain proportion of 
