OTAGO.

Press, Volume VIII, Issue 930, 31 October 1865, Page 2

OTAGO.

MEDICINAL SPBLN'GS. The " Oamaru Times" gives the following account of the discovery of a medicinal spring at Oamaru: — A discovery, the importance of which it is at present difficult to estimate, has been recently made on some land belonging to Mr. Calcutt at the Round Hill. It appears that some men employed there drank of the water of a small spring, but being struck by the peculiar taste and rather unpleasant smell, desisted after drinking only a small quantity. The draught, however, small as it was, acted upon them in such a manner, as to indicate the existence of a water whose qualities closely resemble those for which Cheltenham and Aix la Chapelle have been so long celebrated. Judging by the swell alone, we are inclined to think that it is more of the nature of the sulphurous springs of Carlsbad and Harrogate, but we do not arrogate to ourselves the right of de-1 cidiug a question so purely scientific) in the absence of proper analysis. We may state, however, that the eotnpon- j ent parts of the Aix la Chapelle and Cheltenham waters (as we learn from a work of reference on the subject), consist chiefly of muriates of soda, lime and magnesia, bicarbonate of soda, and sulphuretted hydrogen; while those of the Harrogate water differ [ chiefly in the greater degree of their carbonization, a property remarkable [also in the Thames water, about the neighborhood of Putney. Should the j spring in question prove to be a chalybeate, Oamaru may in future be known as the Bath of.these islands, and patients even from neighboring provinces may come to drink of the waters and find renewed health and'vigor in the genial climate for which this district is already so much celebrated." COPPER- ORE. The " Lake Wakatip Mail," of the 21st instant, states : — "We were shown yesterday, by J. B. Bradshaw, Esq., manager, several specimens of copper ore from the ground of the Wakatip Copper Mining Company, Moke Creek. They were found when cutting through the material that forms tlie land slip. Alongside the slipped lode there is a small vein of quartz and calcspar, containing several kinds of copper ores, with a coating of gossan on the outside of the quartz. The ores, which are thickly mixed through the quartz vein, are —variegated yellow silicate, green carbonate and native metal. The latter runs through the quartz in the form of a thin vein, slightly coated with green carbonate.