280 Mineral Waters of Victoria. 
Subterranean waters often contain other chemical substances 
instead of carbonic acid, which would act energetically upon 
rocks consisting of silicates and carbonates, such as chlorine, 
fluorine, sulphuric and hydrochloric acids, salts, which, 
acting upon compounds, produce double decompositions. 
Even water alone, when at a high temperature, as in the 
thermal springs, has the power of holding many substances. 
usually considered insoluble in solution. The thermal springs 
of New Zealand, Iceland, North America, and many other 
places, hold large quantities of one of the most insoluble sub- 
stances, silica, in solution. Hot water has also no doubt 
caused great alterations in the crust of the earth, aiding in the 
formation of mineral veins, crystalline and metamorphic rocks. 
The paleozoic and other rocks of Victoria contain a great 
number of mineral springs, very few of which have attracted 
much attention, most of them being known only as brackish 
water. We may divide them into the six classes, proposed 
by Dr. Sterry Hunt, for the Canadian waters. The first class 
to contain alkaline chlorides, with chlorides of the alkaline 
earths, carbonates being present only in very small quantities, 
or wholly absent. In this class we may place the waters 
from some of the salt lakes, the mines at Maldon, and 
probably that from the salt springs on the Saltwater River, 
a few miles north of Braybrook. 
The second class differs from the first by containing kee 
quantities of earthy carbonates and sulphates, as the waters 
found in marshy parts of the miocene tertiary in Spring 
Creek, near Barwon Heads, and those from the quartz mines 
from Moyston. 
The third class contains those waters which, in addition to 
the above, contain carbonate of soda. In this class we may 
place some of the Hepburn springs, and perhaps those of 
Daylesford. 
The fourth class consists of those which contain carbonate 
of soda in excess, as those of Ballan and Glenlyon. 
The fifth class are those which contain strong acids, especi- 
ally sulphuric. I know of no member of this class in the 
colony. 
To the sixth class belong those which contain sulphates in 
excess. Many waters. belonging to this class are found in 
the Murray basin, and in many of the tertiary strata con- 
nected with deposits of selenite. At Mount Tarrengower 
there are some waters, the solid matter of which consists 
almost wholly of sulphate of magnesia. 
