106 REPORT—1846, 7 
dinary boring-rods can penetrate ; that the boring tube works at 100 yards in depth 
with as much facility as when only 10 yards down, and that from the very circum- 
stance of its being a hollow rod, it presents more resistance to torsion than a solid 
rod of equal thickness and quite as much resistance to traction: these are the prin- 
cipal advantages of the new system of boring. Indeed these advantages have been 
fully confirmed by the borings which I have just completed at Perpignan. This 
boring was commenced on the Ist of July and was completed onthe 23rd, by finding 
the artesian water at a depth of 170 métres (560 English feet). If from these twenty- 
three days, each of ten hours’ work, are deducted three Sundays and six lost days, 
there remain fourteen days or 140 hours of actual work; which is upwards of 1 
métre per hour, that is, ten times the work of an ordinary boring rod. In the 
method I have described, it will be perceived that the water is injected through 
the interior of the boring rod. Experience has taught me that when gravel, or 
stones of some size are likely to be met with, it is better to inject the water by the 
bore-hole, and let it rise through the boring tube. The additional velocity which 
may be thereby given to the water, and the greater accuracy of calibre of the tube, 
allow the free ascent of all substances which may be found at the bottom of the bore- 
hole, and which the former mode of working may not so readily accomplish. I have 
brought up by this latter way stones of 6 centimétres long and 3 thick (2} by 13 
English inches). The idea of making the water remount through the interior of the 
boring tube suggests an easy mode of boring below a film (sheet) of flowing water : 
it would be sufficient to close the orifice of the bore-hole hermetically, still, however, 
so as to allow the boring tube to work, but yet so that the flowing water should be 
always forced down to the bottom of the bore-hole to find its way to a vent : it would 
thus draw up and carry away all the detritus. If, in addition to the above, we con- 
sider the possibility of making the hoilow stem of the boring rod of wood, and of ba~- 
lancing it so that it would weigh no more than the water in which it has to move, the 
problem of boring to depths of ]000 métres (1100 yards) and upwards would appear 
to be solved. Inthe square of St. Dominique, at Perpignan, a boring had been car- 
ried on upon the old method for upwards of eleven months for the purpose of form- 
ing an artesian well, and the water had not been found.” Fauvelle placed his new 
tube alongside the old boring tackle, and soon got down to a depth of nearly 100 
yards, when an accident occurred which would have required some days to remedy, 
Fauvelle decided upon abandoning the bore-hole already sunk so deep, and com- 
mencing a new one, satisfied that there would thereby bea savingintime, The rate 
of sinking was equal to four English feet per hour of the time the hollow boring rod 
was actually at work, the depth of 560 English feet having been obtained in 140 
working hours, for a bore-hole of about six English inches in diameter. M. Arago, 
who had seen the rods of Fauvelle at work, mentions how fully they answered, and 
that the large powerful tools at the bottom of the hollow boring rod cut easily through 
the hardest strata; he confirmed the fact of the large-sized stones and gravel coming 
up with the ascending current, having himself watched them. He also mentioned 
that such was the opinion of the people in the vicinity of Perpignan, and so much was 
water wanted that orders for the sinking upwards of 200 artesian wells had been 
given to Fauvelle. The introduction of this system into this country, especially if 
combined with the Chinese or percussive system of boring as practised with bore- 
holes of very large diameter at the Saarbruck mines, and at many other places on 
the Continent, must be productive of great benefit, and would not merely effect a 
saving of money and labour, but the paramount advantage of immediately solving 
the question of the existence of coal, minerals, water, &e. 
On Mechanical Apparatus employed for the purpose of preventing Incrusta- 
tion of Steam Boilers. By Mr. Lams. 
It may be defined as a self-acting blow-off apparatus. Mr. Lamb has a theory that 
‘¢ blowing-off ” should take place near the top of a boiler rather than from the bottom. 
He conceives that the carbonate of lime floats by means of small bubbles of steam 
adhering to each particle of lime. His contrivance consists of a large copper float 
closing the orifice of a blow-off pipe in the boiler. When the water has risen above 
a certain height, the blow-off valve is opened by the float, and so delivers the boiler 
