1 58 Observations on the Cause of the Spouting 



Mr Dickson of New Brunswick, after sliowing that, by means 

 of bored wells, water may be procured in any place whatever, 

 and that it will rise to the surface of the earth, independently 

 of all gravitating pressure, says, that masses of water, precipi- 

 tated into the abysses of the interior of the earth, are thrown 

 out to its surface by an innate expansive force, through the ac- 

 tion of the central fire; and again admits, as a second cause for 

 the ascent of water, the effect of capillarity, — forgetting that, if 

 this action could bring subterranean waters to the surface, it yet 

 could not make them spring beyond it. 



According to M. Azais, the springing of the water of bored 

 wells seems to be unamenable to any common law, and can 

 only be accounted for by the universal principle of expansion : 

 " For," says he, " every body which contains in its central 

 parts an expansive focus surrounded by envelopes of greater or 

 less thickness or condensation, is a body in a state of resilience, 

 that is, in a state of continued effort against the resistance of 

 these envelopes. It incessantly labours to drive them outwards, 

 to break and dissolve them ; and not being able to do this, it at 

 least exercises its expansive action upon the internal substances, 

 aoitates them, divides them, attenuates them, and projects them 

 as much as it is possible for it through the pores of the external 

 envelopes. This action of resilience and transpiration is in na- 

 ture the first and essential vital action^ After distinguishing 

 three kinds of transpiration, viz. 1*^, the vital transpiration, 

 which emanates from the central regions of our planet, and pro- 

 iects outwards by radiation the subtile fluids, such as caloric, 

 the magnetic fluid, electricity, he. ; 9.cllij, the middle transpira- 

 tion, which emanates from the intermediate regions, and pro- 

 jects, under a vague and semi-impetuous form, the various gases 

 of which the mass of the atmosphere is composed ; and, 3dlt/, 

 the weaJc or indolent transpiration, which emanates from the 

 layers nearest the envelope, a soft transudation like sweat, and 

 under an aqueous form, M. Azais says, that, like the blood, 

 which, through the impulsion of the central focus, is continually 

 making an effort to exhale, by supplying our habitual transpira- 

 tion, and which springs out the moment the lancet has burst 

 the envelope which retained it, the central water springs out 

 2 



