148 ON THE WATER IN THE CHALK 



position of ascertained and published data to suggest certain infer- 

 ences, which it would seem to require more extended observations 

 to confirm or refute, and still more to propound certain questions to 

 which I, at least, have been unable to obtain satisfactory answers. 



The sinking of an Artesian well affords an opportunity of obtain- 

 ing data of the highest importance at once to the geologist, to the 

 chemist, and to the economist and engineer. Each naturally 

 appropriates and tabulates the facts which have an especial 

 relation to his own particular science or practical object, and 

 ignores those with which he is not directly concerned. Hence we 

 find excellent geological accounts of well-sections without a word 

 as to the quality, composition, etc., of the water obtained from the 

 well ; elaborate tables of analyses of water with the barest allusion 

 to the geological structure of the locality of its source, or the 

 copiousness of the supply ; or, again, full details of the size and 

 depth of the well, the level at which water was obtained, the height 

 to which it rises in the well, and its general character as to its 

 fitness for domestic purposes, as shown by its greater or less free- 

 dom from organic impurity and its greater or less hardness, with- 

 out any further notice of its special chemical constitution, or any 

 special characteristics of the strata whence it is derived. 



Now, I think there could be no more appropriate or useful 

 work for a Committee of our Society, whose sphere of operation 

 extends over a county in which there are probably more Artesian 

 wells than in any other district of the same area on the face of the 

 globe, than to collect together in one focus every possible detail, 

 geological, chemical, economical, and structural, with respect to as 

 many existing wells as possible, and still more to ensure that the 

 same shall in future be obtained and recorded for every new well 

 that is sunk in Middlesex or within the neighbouring parts of the 

 Thames basin. I cannot doubt but that the mere bringing to- 

 gether of the results of specialists in the several sciences working 

 on .the same subject-matter and tabulating them in one standard 

 form so as to admit of immediate and accurate comparison be- 

 tween one instance and another, would lead to conclusions of 

 great value, not only to the practical question of the water supply 

 of an ever-growing community, but also to various sciences, and, 

 it may be, to quite unsuspected generalizations. 



