HuTTON. — On Artesian Wells. 655 



the stone sill of the back door of the Museum was registered : 

 this was 9ft. 8^in. On the 11th it went down to 9ft. 6in., 

 and ou the 21st it had risen to 9ft. 8fin. This I call the 

 " deep well." 



The top of the iron pipe of the old well — or shallow well 

 — I found to be 2ft. lOin. above the stone door- sill, and the 

 water stood 2in. or Sin. below the top; so that there was a 

 difference of about 7ft. in the height of the water in the two 

 wells. 



At this time the rainfall was not registered in Christ- 

 church, but arrangements wei'e being made to put up a gauge 

 in the Public Gardens ; and Mr. A. L. Taylor, the head 

 gardener, has kindly supplied me with the rainfall from the 

 1st June, 1894, to the 31st May, 1895. 



Meantime, as it was known that the artesian wells near 

 New Brighton were affected by the height of the tide, I made 

 hourly observations on three different days to see whether the 

 Museum wells were also affected ; for, if this were the case, a 

 tidal correction would have to be applied to every observation. 

 I found, however, that the tide had no appreciable effect on 

 either of the wells. 



At first I had some little difliculty in reading the deep 

 well on account of the hydraulic ram, which would occasion- 

 ally jamb ; but I remedied this by stopping it altogether and 

 keeping it stopped during the whole period of the observations. 

 These observations were made between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. 

 each day. As the glass gauge reached only to 10ft. above the 

 door-sill, all observations above that level could only be con- 

 jectural, and I gave up making them. When the water rose 

 above the top of the iron pipe in the shallow well I made 

 a cardboard collar to lengthen it. On account of leakage 

 these readings are only approximate, but they are faii-ly 

 accurate. 



The results of the observations I give in a series of twelve 

 diagrams, one for each month, on which the daily rainfall in the 

 Public Gardens is also shown. In these diagrams the figures 

 in the right and left columns are the number of feet and inches 

 from the datum-line on the door-stone, and to read the height of 

 the deep well 7ft. must be added. Thus, on the 1st June, 1894, 

 the height of the shallow well was 3ft. l-|in., and that of the 

 deep well 10ft., above the door-sill. The daily fluctuations of 

 the shallow well are represented by a continuous line ; those 

 of the deep well by a broken line. The rainfall is shown in 

 the usual way at the bottom of each diagram. The figures 

 at the top and bottom of the diagram are the days of the 

 month, and the thick longitudinal lines divide the month into 

 weeks. 



