MEDICINAL SPRINGS.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17408, 20 March 1922, Page 8

MEDICINAL SPRINGS.

MUD-BATHS AND MERCURY. An interesting description of the little known medicinal springs and mud baths at Ngawha, near Kaikohe, Auckland district, wEis given by a lady who has just returned from a visit to the district.

"It. is a weird sort of place," she said. "Evidently a huge volcanic crater, or rather a series of craters, covering about five miles of country. Tho whole place was once an immense kauri forest, but many years ago was swept by bush fires, which destroyed all but a few isolated patches. It seems as though an earthquake had opened up great rifts, wnich in time became miniature; canyons, with fresh water streams running through them. I did not see any boiling water actually coming up, as at Ik>torua ; but everywhere there were 'steam jets issuing from little holes like those made by crabs in the muddy banks of salt-water creeks." Tho Maoris had du<j out holes all about the mud-flats, continued tha visitor, and as the water filled these holes the steam made it nearly boiling hot. There were mud-baths, black, white, and yellow, hot and cold freshwater baths, hot and also cold sodawater, and four or five lakes, reputed to be bottomless, evidently the original vent-holes of the volcanoes. "I had a swim in tho smallest of these lakes," remarked" the visitor, "and the water was wonderfully refreshing and buoyant. I also remained in tho mud pools most of one rainy day, and the heavier the rain, the hotter became tho water. A lew white people camped nearby and, about a dozen Maoris arc taking the baths. On fine Sundays the Maoris come in dozens, and stay all day and lato into the night. Patients who are well enough employ their spare time gumdiggin 6> or digging quicksilver out of the sand and mud. The whole place seems full of quicksilver, but the ground is too hot to allow shafts bein-3 sunk to work it properly. All over the hillsides are abandoned mercury workings and old diggings, while in ither places there are the stumps and roots of giant kauri trees, the largest I have ever seen. It is a remarkable place, and it is a pity moro Aucklande.s do not know of tho curative properties of its baths and springs."