Norfolk Island Dripstones
– made from Massive Calcarenite Limestone
aka drip stone, dripstone, water filter
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Gravity-fed, limestone water filtration devices called ‘Dripstones’ were manufactured on Norfolk Island in the South Pacific during the 1800s.
Above, a dripstone, believed to be made on Norfolk Island, on display at the Prisoners' Barracks in the Convict Precinct on Cockatoo Island in Sydney. Photograph by Anne Dollin.
Take a look at this dripstone, inside and out, in our new 3D LiDAR scan! |
A dripstone was a deep, hand-carved stone bowl, that was mounted in a wood or iron frame. It was filled with water, and a collecting bowl was placed underneath it to collect the water as it percolated through the porous stone.
One of the best sources of stone to manufacture these deep bowls was 'Massive Calcarenite Limestone' that was found in underwater beds, offshore from Norfolk Island.
Millstones were also cut from Massive Calcarenite Limestone in Norfolk Island!
Most documentation about Norfolk Island dripstones relates to the Second Settlement period (1825–1855). However, Anne Dollin has recorded evidence, from the Mitchell Library in Sydney, that the manufacture of Norfolk Island dripstones actually began as early as 1804, during the First Settlement period (see eBook below).
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Dripstones became very popular with high-income households in Sydney and were also used to filter water on sailing ships ('nautical dripstones'). For example, this newspaper advertisement lists Norfolk Island Dripstones for sale, fitted ready with their wooden frames:
Above, an advertisement in 1875 in Sydney for dripstones, ready in their frames, made on Norfolk Island. The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 4 Dec 1875.
Although the water produced by these dripstones looked much clearer, some alarming news published in 1896 led to Norfolk Island dripstones being superseded by other types of water filters. Professor Anderson Stuart, President of the Board of Health, in Sydney, reported that he had found swarms of living organisms in the filtered water:
'DRINKING-WATER AND HOW TO OBTAIN IT.
USELESS DOMESTIC FILTERS.
Interview with Professor Anderson-Stuart
… You ask me (said the Professor) how to get a good water, meaning a good drinking-water, I presume. That is a matter which has engaged the attention of this department for some Time past, and which moreover has been carefully investigated comparatively recently in London, but it was being inquired into here at Sydney even before it was in London, in connection with a very favourite kind of filter in Sydney – I mean the Norfolk Island dripstone, which is a very old-fashioned kind of filter in the neighbourhood of Sydney, and which is very much thought of by the old families in and around this city. But I regret to say that it is like all other ordinary domestic filters – perfectly useless, and even worse.
Not so long ago I tested water that had passed through one of those dripstones in the possession of a family in the neighbourhood of Sydney, and for which they had paid no less than £20 sterling. It was a shock to them to learn that the water which had been strained through it was simply swarming with living organisms. Fortunately they were not organisms of disease but they were organisms – and, after all, one does not pay £20 for a filter to find that the water from it contains "fresh food " in this form…'
The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 January, 1896.
The dripstone, shown below, is on display in the House Museum at Norfolk Island.
Above, a dripstone on display at the Norfolk Island House Museum. Photograph by Frank Holland.
Examples of Norfolk Island dripstones made from Massive Calcarenite can still be seen in many museums and historical displays around Australia.
Read More About Norfolk Island's Flour Mills
•• Overview •• First Settlement Flour Mills •• Second Settlement Flour Mills •• Nathaniel Lucas •• Robert Nash •• Norfolk Island Millstones ••