Experiments in Boring for Fresh Water. 143 
and above the surface. If the Senora agent be gravitation, 
other causes may also operate. We cannot doubt that aeri- 
al or gaseous agency is much cael in the phenomena at 
least of brine springs, and this agent often converts these 
springs into boiling fountains, where inflammable gas is 
stantly evolved, and Sit kindled, burns with brillianey, and 
often for a long tim 
There can be as “little doubt that gaseous and aerial agen- 
cy is the great power, that in volcanoes, raises the masses of 
semi-fluid lava, through thousands of feet in altitude,—that 
eventually ruptures the mountain—that projects showers of 
_ ignited stones and rocks—that tears asunder the solid strata, 
shakes the mountains from their foundations, and causes the 
globe itself to vibrate and tremble. 
POSTSCRIPT. 
Since making the above abstract, the following extract of a 
letter from Mr. SAMUEL Heppurn to Mr. D. D. Cues- 
NuT, dated Milton, (Penn.) Jan. 31, 1827, has been 
communicated to the editor. 
~The Messrs. Pollocks have been entirely successful in 
their search after water, and at a very moderate expense,— 
some $60. The time conenmied 3 in boring was about thirty 
days. The well, or hole, is within the ‘walls of their distil- 
lery, at the foot of the “Red Hill.” They commenced bor- 
ing in the bottom of a well they pee formerly dug, to a depth 
of ten feet from the surface, and procured a supply ain 
ie cad: puree ses at a “fhe et of v0 eae dal is, at 120 fee 
well was sunk at a spot whos 
ter per minute, and rises eight feet in the ten feet well, the 
diameter of which is from 8 to 10 feet. The water is very 
soft, and free from any enpreenatice of lime, which is so 
much the case with the well water generally in this neighbor- 
hood. The hole is sunk at least 50 feet below the bottom of 
the river, from which it is distant some 400 yards. The bor- 
ing, as Mr. Pollock informs me, was entirely through the 
red slate rock, that mainly composes the hill—precisely the 
‘¢ saliferous rock” of Professor Eaton, which is stated to con- 
stitute ‘‘the floor of all the salt springs in the western coun- 
try.” (Query.—Might salt water be had by boring something — 
