A note on the possible nutritional value of spring water in the western Karoo

Delegorgue (1990, https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Adulphe_Delegorgue%CA%BCs_Travels_in_Souther.html?id=88sKAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y), on page 38, wrote:
In the Karoo of Northern Cape province of South Africa, beyond Spionsberg, near Hantam, there are scattered "brackish muddy springs, where one dares spend no more than a night, as the water is soon exhausted. The abundance of salt in the earth appears to be the principle cause of the lack of vegetation; one encounters virtually nothing but fleshy plants which are rarely useful either to man or beast; however, a few scrawny bushes do grow there, the tips of the branches being avidly sought out by sheep and goats. This Karoo grazing is more beneficial to them than that of places where the grass is abundant, just as the brackish water has, for a long time, been recognised as healthier and more fortifying to the sheep than water that runs clear and fresh. The brackish water seems to have an advantageous effect, not only on animals, but on men too. I have seen Dutch peasants who, in order to have fat flocks, have been obliged to live on the banks of some great stretch of abominably insipid water; these men soon become accustomed to it and seemed to enjoy more robust health than their neighbours."

This seems to attest to the nutritional value of mineralised waters for Ovis aries, Capra hircus, and Homo sapiens, in the western Karoo, possibly including the succulent karoo.

I suspect that this value is owing to not only the cationic elements (e.g. magnesium), but also the micronutrients iodine and selenium.

https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/889503-Caroxylon-aphyllum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroxylon_aphyllumv

Posted on October 31, 2022 10:31 AM by milewski