120 On Artesian or Overflowing Wells. 



even when a third came to their assistance. They were equally 

 incapable of restraining the water by an iron-stopper. At last 

 they took the advice of a mason, and planted several tubes of 

 small diameter over the bore, and thus succeeded at last in mas- 

 tering the water. 



At a Mr Lord''s, in Tooting, where a bore had been closed, the 

 water worked with such violence under the ground, that it burst 

 forth in a space 15 yards in circumference, and certainly the 

 walls would have been brought down if free vent had not been 

 given to it. This spring, say the informants, on account of 

 the height of its jet, and the quantity of water (600 litres per 

 minute), is worthy of being in a public square. 



The stream of a well belonging to a neighbour of Mr Lord, 

 drove a water-wheel of 5 feet in diameter, and this again set a 

 pump in motion which carried the water to the top of a three- 

 storied house. 



Even in the north east of France these overflowing and spring- 

 ing wells are by no means rare, as is seen from M. Hericart de 

 Thury's notice in the Annul, de TIndustrie. At Kreutzwald, 

 in the department of the Moselle, one has been sunk 60 metres ; 

 at St Quentin, in the department of the Aisne, there are two 

 similar ones which flow over their brinks ; further, at Prix, near 

 Mezieres, thei'e is one 143 yards deep, which rises about 0-5 

 of a yard above the ground. At St Amand, in the department 

 of the north, were three wells, bored to a depth of 45 yards, 

 the water of which sprang a yard out of the ground, and has 

 never diminished since*. 



At Rieulay, in the valley of Scarpe, towards the end of last 

 century, in searching for coal, they came on a stream of water, 



• A remarkable circumstance, although net immediately conrected with 

 Artesian wells, is related by Hericart de Thury, of the sulphureous spring 

 of Bouillon, near St Amand. In the j-ear 1697, when they began to repair 

 the reservoir of this spring for receiving the fresh water, such a sudden dis- 

 engagement of sulphuretted hydrogen took place, probablj' from another di- 

 rection being given to it by the masonry, that an immense mass of water, 

 mud, and sand was proje.-ted. It was curious enough, too, that several coins 

 of different Roman emperors appeared at the surface, and more than 200 

 images, sculptured in wood. Most of these were much defaced by lying long 

 in the water, yet M. Bottin believes, from his memoir in the Memoires de la 

 Socictic Roijalc dcs Antiquaries dc France, that, at the time of the introduction 

 of Christianity into these places, they were thrown into the well from fear of 

 the zeal of the holy Amand, Bishop of Tougres. 



