268 On Ebling and Flowing Springs. 
at which town I resided several months about twenty years ago. 
I was then assured that no pure fresh water could be had there, 
but from under a stratum of clay which at the Block-house mill 
was at the depth of about ninty-eight feet, and is supposed to 
basset or out-crop a few miles west of Hull. I made some in- 
quiries as to the stratification in those parts, and was told that 
the hard chalk rock of which Flamborough Head is composed, is 
at the surface a little to the west of Hull, and from thence is said 
to dip E, to Spurn Point, and SE. into Lincolnshire, at the rate 
of five yards per mile. The strata incumbent upon it reckoning 
downward are ; viz. 
Ist. Soil or earth, two feet. 
2d. Warp, twenty-two feet, being about the height of the 
highest tide at Hull. 
3d. Morass, about three feet, in which are found decayed ve-. 
getables and large trees. 
May not this morass be connected with the submerged forest 
near the mouth of the Humber on the Lincolnshire coast? See 
Phil. Transactions for 1799, part i. 
4th. Alluvial, at Hull about seventy feet, consisting of sharp 
loose sand, carbonated wood, chalk, &c. below which is a stra- 
tum of compact white clay more or less thick, between which 
and the chalk rock is lodged the only pure water to be got in 
that neighbourhood. 
At Sproatley, the chalk rock is supposed to be 198 fect below 
the surface. 
Swanland and Riplingham hills, to the west of Hull, are re- 
ported to be chalk with alternate layers of flint 6 to 8 inches 
thick. The latter hill is 400 fect above the level of the Humber, 
and is said to have been penetrated 50 feet below it. 
As all the Yorkshire wolds are chalk hills, it is not probable 
that water could be there procured by boring, as suggested by 
Mr. Inglis; but in the neighbourhood of Hull, and to the east, 
it is practicable. In November 1798, I visited a farm-house 
about three miles from Hull, and about a quarter of a mile on 
the left of the road leading from thence to Beverley. Four 
months before, they had sunk a well and bored for water; and at 
the depth of 58 feet came upon a spring which had to that time 
invariably thrown up, to the height of two feet above the surface, 
a column of pure soft water which discharged more than twenty 
gallons per minute*. J have not since had an opportunity of 
ascertaining whether this spring continues to furnish a supply 
of water; but at Sheerness and Wimbleton it is well known 
that wells sunk to much greater depth have continued to afford 
* They told me forty gallons, but I wish to be within compass. 
a Con- 
