206 ARTESIAN WELLS IN DORSET AND ELSEWHERE. 



general opinion that water from low down in the Chalk is not 

 so hard, z.e., not so heavily charged with Lime-salts as that from 

 Chalk nearer the top of the formation. I am informed that the 

 experience derived from the London artesian wells bears this 

 out, viz., that lower down in the Chalk the Soda-salts exceed 

 the Lime-salts, and thus that the water becomes softer. The 

 comparison between the Wimborne and Bovington water seems 

 to bear out these views. 



General Conclusion. It will, perhaps, be admitted by this time, 

 that the boring-rod is a better instrument than the divining-rod 

 for obtaining a supply of water.* All the same, it may be 

 premised that a certain amount of geological knowledge is 

 required to hit upon the right spot for making a bore-hole, and 

 even in that case the element of " luck" must be accepted as a 

 factor of some importance in the matter. 



Omitting the consideration of any other formation than the 

 Chalk, we at once perceive that success does not always follow 

 from boring operations, though there are not likely to be many 

 cases such as the one in Windsor Forest (see page 201-2), where 

 the entire Chalk formation was bored through without a sufficient 

 supply of water having been obtained, and this too where the 



Chloride, unless the analyst would have us believe that the water contains free 

 Chlorine. If we suppose that the Chlorine found is combined Chlorine, calculated 

 as Sodiw/i Chloride, then there is no further difficulty. I have an analysis of the 

 Bovington water by a London chemist which agrees with this one so far in show- 

 ing an excess of the Chlorides over the Lime-salt's. After all this is the main 

 point as indicating a fairly soft water from the Bovington well. 



* There is an amusing story coming from German South-west Africa of a cer- 

 tain man of the name of Uslar, who had been sent out from Germany to assist the 

 colonists to find water in that thirsty land. It seems incredible that scientific 

 Germany was willing to quarter a " water finder," or wielder of the divining-rod 

 upon the unsuspecting colonists. This man could find water where an ordinary 

 observer would also have suspected its presence, whilst in other places wells have 

 been sunk, on his indications, hundreds of feet deep, but in vain. Thus a 

 correspondent of the Frankfurter Zcltiing deplores the enormous waste of money 

 expended in useless boring through gneiss and granite, and the cost of 

 Uslar's expeditions. He adds that the local authorities would be exceedingly 

 glad if Uslar's mission was at an end, and asks why, if the divining-rod has any 

 practical value, geologists and hydrologists are not driven from the universities, 

 Morning Post, April 1st, 1907, 



