168 OBSERVATIONS ON 



sidered to tread upon the threshold of a naturalist's scope 

 of inquiry. 



The presence of natural and healthy germs and organisms 

 which are to be found in springs and rivers and are really 

 nascent in water, are doubtless better known, and have 

 been treated upon, by you in your many researches, inas- 

 much as you have amongst your number eminent chemists, 

 biologists, and physiologists, and last, but not least, a gentle- 

 man who stands high in the geological world, viz. the 

 President of the College, Professor L. Morgan. I shall not, 

 therefore, attempt to travel into that area of inquiry. 



Engineering geology (if I may so term it) is what every 

 civil and, more especially, hydraulic engineer must gain 

 more or less knowledge upon as he carries out his work 

 of dealing with water and water supply. 



The origin of surface springs, which have their natural 

 outlets in the sides or slopes of hills and valleys, are all 

 dependent upon the rainfall for their genesis ; but it is not 

 always that Nature presents her resources in such a way 

 that they can be utilized without the assistance of the 

 scientist and the work of development of the civil engineer. 



I have before treated this subject somewhat' in detail in 

 a paper upon Rainfall and Wells read before 5'-our Society 

 in the late Engineering Section. 



With regard to surface springs, their appearance, as a 

 rule, is due to the relieving of water-logged strata, or to 

 the overflow of conserved water in basins and chasms 

 through natural channels, or they are thrown out by the 

 existence of an impervious underlying strata or by faults or 

 upthrows which arrest the passage of the water through the 

 interstices of the different formations to its natural outlet. 

 Such are found in the Pennant Grit, New Red Sandstone, 

 Chalk, etc., and the form in which these springs present 



