HOT MINERAL SPRING

Taranaki Daily News, 12 September 1935, Page 4

HOT MINERAL SPRING

CURATIVE PROPERTIES? NEW PLYMOUTH PHENOMENON FORGOTTEN FOR MANY YEARS. “SPA" IN RESIDENTIAL AREA. How many New Plymouth people know that there is a miniature spa within ten minutes’ walk of the post office? True, the bore makes only three or four gallons of water a minute, and it is ejected from a rusty iron pipe hidden in an obscurity of tangled gorse and black--berry on a vacant, hilly section at the junction of Bonithon Avenue and South Road, but it is rich in mineral f content and its temperature varies, irrespective of the seasons, between 100 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit. At least one New Plymouth man who bathed regularly in the little pool below the bore mouth for a season swears by the medicinal properties of the water and dubs it a “destroyer of rheumatism, but it is remarkable that even householders on adjacent sections were unaware of the bore’s existence until a newspaper man made inquiries to trace its history. . Only curiosity or chance would lead one to investigate the flow of water from the bore mouth. It spurts steadily from the perforations about the mouth of a 12-inch nozzle and gives off a faint vapour only in cold weather. Summer or winter the subterranean reservoir feeds the spring, the flow varying but little in volume and temperature. The water is crystal clear, with that peculiar flat, brackish taste of spa rich in magnesium salts. It fills a small pool beneath, the pipe that overflows into marshy ground and gradually drains into the Mangaotuku Stream. HISTORY OF THE PIPE. Just how far the artesian water is thrust up through the skin of the earth no-one knows exactly. The old pipe from which the flow comes has an interesting history. It is the casing of an oil bore sunk more than 30 years ago by Mr. W. H. McLean, a New Zealander prominent in the searches for the “greasy gold” instituted throughout the province in the early years of this century. According to an old resident of New Ply-, mouth, who remembers the days of the first oil boring clearly, several experts were imported from America to supervise this particular work for Mr. McLean. The work went smoothly for some months until strata bearing signs of oil were reached. Then, when the prospects of obtaining a payable flow were brightest, a hitch occurred between the American oil men and their employer, and ; the heavy drills were one night lost in the well. The metal telescoped and, although numerous efforts to remove it with jacks and pulleys were made, further boring operations were effectively blocked, although machinery developed in subsequent years would have made the job easy. • „ The well was abandoned, ana the fittings sold, but sundry rubbish dumped into the mouth of the bore failed to staunch the flow of hot water that had been held an indication of the dnlls proximity to oil-bearing sand. Incidentally, an amateur geologist who panned the “core” from the drills found traces of copper and other minerals in the mullock. A New Plymouth man with considerable knowledge of geology, when asked for his opinion on the towns little known “hot spring,” said that a flow of hot water at certain stages of oil boring operations was by no means unusual. The curative properties of several such/ flows were well known in America and Australia. It was impossible of course, to determine what was the value of the New Plymouth bore water until an‘analysis was made, but in all probability the water would be heavily charged with mineral salts might, or might not, prove valuable in the treatment of cases of rheumatism and arthritis.