Simple laboratory experiments involving the contact of distilled water with crushed olivine-basalt over several months under atmospheric temperature and pressure conditions have shown that constituents are dissolved from the basalt and upon evaporation the solutions deposit crystals of carbonates, smectites, and zeolites. The results bear out the observations and conclusions previously made in the field that solutions depositing secondary minerals in Tertiary basalts in New South Wales are extraneous and cold. It is also suggested that as the assemblage calcite-montmorillonite-heulandite can form in the vesicles of basalts under such conditions it should not be included in the zeolite facies of metamorphism.