and Spoilt ing Fountains. 207 



jected fifteen feet above the surface, and when confined in pipes, 

 rose to the tops of the highest houses. 



These historical details, will, we must, be sufficient to propi- 

 tiate that class of individuals who cannot succeed in interesting 

 themselves about any thing which has not antiquarian alliances, 

 and will induce them favourably to regard this important sub- 

 ject. 



WHENCE IS THE WATER OP THESE WELLS DERIVED ? 



It appears natural to suppose, that the water of common and 

 artesian wells, and spouting fountains, is no other than the rain- 

 water, which has found its way through the pores or the fissures 

 of the soil, until it encounters some bed of rock which it cannot 

 penetrate. This opinion, however, has not always been admit- 

 ted so soon as it was stated. Theories of a more learned cha- 

 racter have taken the precedence of it, and these theories, though 

 now abandoned, appear nevertheless to merit a few minutes' con- 

 sideration ; and the more so, as the recollection of them may be 

 traced, in many of the publications which owe their existence to 

 the recent success of those inquirers who have been labouring in 

 this department of science. 



It was for a long time believed that the water of the sea must 

 of necessity extend itself, by means of infiltration, into the very 

 interior even of continents, and that at length it there form- 

 ed a liquid expanse, which, despite the influence of capillary 

 attraction, was to be found in the extension of the general 

 level of the ocean. It was also admitted, that in its progress 

 across the tortuous circuits of earths and rocks, the water en- 

 tirely lost its saltness, so that in whatever quarter of the globe 

 wells were sunk, fresh water would be met with, so soon as the 

 wells were sunk to a depth equal to the elevation of the land 

 above the level of the .sea. 



For the overturning of this hypothesis, we are not now re- 

 duced to the necessity of adducing the fact, that there are some 

 isolated dry wells, the depth of which is far below the level of 

 the pretended continental subterranean waters; for we can point 

 to a whole district, viz. that portion of Russia which the Wolga, 

 through the greater extent of its course, traverses : there an im- 

 mense extent of territory, which is situated mucli beneath the 



p2 



