Professor Buckland on Artesian Wells, 321 



sion of barren soils to fertility, were examples of the practical 

 application of geology to the useful purposes of life ; and the 

 sciences of agriculture and civil engineering must obviously 

 be imperfect in some of their most fundamental points, w^ith- 

 out a know^ledge of the composition of soils, and structure of 

 the earth.* 



In all kinds of operations under ground, the necessity to 

 the engineer of a knowledge of geology, and of the hydro- 

 static conditions of subterraneous water, would appear from 

 every fact he was about to notice in the well on Southampton 

 Common, and also in the very recent Artesian well at the 

 Southampton Railway Station, and in wells at Otterbourn 

 and Hursley, on the south-west of Winchester. He would, 

 however, first inquire — whence came that inexhaustible sub- 

 terranean supply of water which Providence had laid up 

 in store, wherever the earth was habitable. On this part of 

 the history of water he should say less, because he had given 

 a summary of what was known on the subject, in a chapter of 

 his Pridgewater Treatise, illustrated by diagrams, explaining 

 the origin of springs and Artesian wells. 



The sun now shining so bright and beauteous, drew up 

 vapour from the surface of the ocean, which was held in a 

 state of invisible solution in the air, until, condensed by cold, 

 it fell in fertilizing drops upon the earth. By this sublimely 

 simple natural machinery, supplies of fresh water were ob- 

 tained from the sea, for the salt was not taken up with the 

 vapour, except in an almost imperceptible degree. The mean 

 quantity of rain which fell annually in England was about 31 

 inches, and nearly 3000 tons of water were deposited annually 

 upon every acre, in a manner which the best watering-pot could 

 imperfectly imitate. These fructifying waters descended from 

 the air upon the earth in a state most favourable for vegeta- 

 tion, charged with minute quantities of sea-salt, together with 



* The best little and cheap book he could recommend to farmers, for 

 shewing the agricultural character and capabilities of the different soils 

 and subsoils of England, and particularly of the chalk, and beds of clay 

 and sands, that lie above and immediately beneath it, was " Morton on 

 Subsoils." 



