Chap. VI.] 



SPRING NEAR POTOOR. 



537 



hj^drogeii gas. But tlie most remarkable fact connected 

 with this well is that its surface rises and falls a few 

 inches once in every twelve hours, but it never over- 

 flows its banks, and is never reduced below a certain 

 fixed point, even by the abstraction of large quantities 

 of water. In 1824, the Governor, Sir Edward Barnes, 

 conceived the idea of using this apparently inexhaust- 

 ible spring for maintaining a perpetual iriigation of tlie 

 surrounding districts. With this view, he caused a 

 steam-engine Avith three pumps to be erected at the 

 well of Potoor. But for some reasoii, which I have 

 been unable to ascertain \ the attempt was soon aban- 

 doned. In reporting the early progress of the expe- 

 riment, the Government officer of the district repre- 

 sented that the pumps, though worked incessantly for 

 forty-eight hours, and drawing off a prodigious quan- 

 tity of water, had in no degree reduced the apparent 

 contents of the well, which rose each day precisely an 

 inch and a half between the hours of seven in the morn- 

 ing and one o'clock in the afternoon ; and again between 

 eight o'clock and twelve at night — falling to an equiva- 

 lent extent in the intervals.- The natives are perfectly 

 familiar Avith all these phenomena, and beheve that the 

 well communicates with the sea at the Kieremalie, near 

 Kangesen-torre, a distance of seven miles, from Avhich tliey 

 affirm that a subterranean stream flows iuAvards, as 



^ I have since been told that hinds 

 iiTigated by the water procured from 

 the well were found to yield no in- 

 crease, the grain reaped being scarcely 

 equal to the quantity of seed sown in 

 the ground. 



'^ This rise of the water is very 

 ciirious ; — but the phenomena liave 

 been too imperfectly investigated to 

 be susceptiljle of ready explanation. 

 I can have little doubt that the 

 Goveniment officer reported with 

 tolerable accuracy the fact as he 

 found it ; a fact, moreover, which is 

 stated to have been well known to 



the natives, both in regard to this 

 well, and another at a short distance 

 from it. It is to be lioped that future 

 exploration will disclose the causes of 

 these mysterious oscillations : mean- 

 time we mu.st rest content with the 

 popular Iniiothesis of a communica- 

 tion direct from the sea to the bottom 

 of the well, where the water is salt, 

 by means of some irregular fissure ; 

 and refer the presence of fresher 

 Avater at top to percolation througli 

 the coral rock, and perluips to casual 

 additions, deriA-ed at rare iiifci-vals, 

 from surface supply. 



