328 Professor Buckland on Artesian Wells, 



swallowed or engulphed into the chalk, and may carry down 

 seeds with it, and it was not impossible that such seeds might 

 one day rise in the well at Southampton Common. 



Districts composed of chalk were, beyond all others, exempt 

 from inundations, and absorbed unusual quantities of rain- 

 water. Those persons who had seen Stockbridge may have 

 remarked that many of the bridges were so low that even 

 the ducks lower their heads as they swim under them. The 

 bridges are low also at Salisbury and Winchester, because 

 the chalk in their neighbourhood absorbs great part of that 

 rain water which causes floods upon less absorbent strata. A 

 rare exception to this rule occurred three or four years ago, at 

 the village of Shrewton, on Salisbury Plain, in a severe win- 

 ter, when the surface of the chalk was sealed up with ice. 

 Nearly all the houses in this village were washed away by a 

 flood, produced by the melting of snow, at a time when the 

 ground, being frozen, could not, as it usually does, admit the 

 water to the absorbing crevices of the chalk. 



He would now call attention to the large and important 

 spring, called Pole's Hole, which issues permanently, in quan- 

 tity sufiicient to turn a mill, at Otterbourne, distant about 

 seven miles hence, between Southampton and Winchester. 

 In this spring we have the nearest large natural vent, or out- 

 let, which regulates the level of the subterranean waters of 

 the chalk in that part of Hants, The level of this vent may, 

 therefore, affect that of the water which rises in the well on 

 Southampton Common ; for if this water comes from the 

 same bed of chalk that supplies the spring, or vent, at Otter- 

 bourne, it can rise to no great height above the level of this 

 vent when the water is lowest, nor above the level of the 

 wells at Hursley when the water is highest.* The capacity 



* The water in the well on Southampton Common is said to rise at 

 the present time (August 1844), to within 41 feet 7 inches of the surface. 

 Should this level be much above that of the vent at Otterbourne, some 

 water must either enter the well from the tertiary strata above the chalk, 

 or enter the bore hole from fissured beds of chalk lower than that which 

 has its lowest vent at Otterbourne ; and such water-bearing lower beds 

 must be separated from that which has this vent at Otterbourne, by inter- 

 mediate beds of solid and impermeable chalk. All these beds must also 



