BY ROBERT L. JACK, F.G.S., F.R.G.S. 65 



nothing to do with the case. Mr. Thomson further (January) 

 remarked that "the whole central basin is nowhere greatly 

 elevated above sea level. . . . and it must be remembered 

 that the levels are so low that it would be difficult, if not 

 altogether impossible, for water to circulate along these by 

 gravitation." I should have thought that the low levels of the 

 surface of the interior, implying still lower levels for the strata 

 in which artesian water is actually met with, coupled with the 

 fact of the high altitudes at which the strata crop out, afforded, 

 on the contrary, the most favourable conditions possible for the 

 circulation of water. 



I can only reiterate the observed fact that numerous important 

 rivers disappear on crossing the outcrop of the lowest beds of 

 the Lower Cretaceous formation. There is nothing in the 

 world to lead us to doubt that the water is absorbed by these 

 strata, and carried down by them beneath the impermeable clay 

 shales, which underlie the soil of the interior. That it is so 

 distributed is demonstrated by the bores themselves. The 

 inference follows naturally that if, every wet season, these 

 beds are prepared to absorb a great portion of the rainfall, they 

 must have been emptied, to a corresponding extent, of the water 

 absorbed during previous wet seasons. In other words, if they 

 are full, they can hold no more. The bores and springs 

 combined do not give out a tithe of the water absorbed every 

 wet season, and, as the water does not escape by land, and can 

 hardly be supposed to find a hiding-place in the centre of the 

 earth, the only alternative is that it must escape where the 

 absorbing strata crop out beneath the floor of the ocean. ''But," 

 says Mr. Thomson (January) : "In support of the theory of 

 leakage it has been stated that the capacity of the water- 

 bearing beds can only be rendered efficient and adequate by the 

 subterranean channels that communicate with the sea ; that, in 

 fact, the quantity of water drained oft" by these compensating 

 or accommodating arteries is about equal to that absorbed by 

 the bibulous rocks. And upon this hypothesis we must conceive 

 that there is an absolutely inexhaustive underground reservoir 

 of artesian water intra muroswiih. an outflow so nicely regulated 

 that its capacity is in equilibrio and adequate to receive and 

 contain the whole body of water greedily absorbed during 



