84 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



[No. 2, 



The 1st at the depth of 108 feet. 



2d, - - 138 do. 



3d, - - 156 do. 



4th, - - 184 do. 



5th, - - 206 do. 



The same engineers encountered four of these 

 reservoirs of water, whilst boring to the depth of 

 200 feet at Saint Denis, close to the Place de la 

 JPoste aux Chevanx, 



At Tours, the three pools, all having a tendency 

 to ascend, which were met with by M . Degousee, 

 were found below La Place de la Cathedrale. 



The 1st at the depth of 292 feet. 

 2d, - - 240 do. 



3d, - - 383 do. 



The sinking of pits in the neighborhood of Lon- 

 don has brought the same truth to light; and the 

 Fame remark might be made respecting the 

 United States of America. 



Negative Artesian Wells. 



Sometimes pits are sunk for the purpose of 

 transmitting into the interior of the earth, water, 

 retained at the surface by strata of impermeable 

 clay or stone, and thereby rendering extensive 

 districts mere morasses, unfit for cultivation. The 

 pits by which descend into the interior of the 

 earth those quantities of water which, without 

 this expedient, remain on the surface, may be 

 called negative artesian wells. Necessity, the 

 mother of so many important inventions, early 

 suggested to mankind the idea of imitating nature 

 in this point. 



The plain of Paluns, near Marseilles, used to be 

 a great morass. It appeared impossible to drain 

 it by the help of the common surface channels. 

 King Rene, however, caused a great number of 

 pits or drain-wells to be sunk, which are known 

 in the Provencal language by the name of embugs 

 (funnels.)* These pits transmitted, and now 

 transmit, in the permeable strata situated at a cer- 

 tain depth, those waters which made the whole 

 country a barren waste. It is positively stated 

 that it is the waters taken down by these embugs 

 of Paluns, which, after a subterranean course, 

 form the projecting fountains of the port of Mion, 

 near to Cassis. 



The river Orbe, in the Jura, which descends 

 from the lake of the Rousses, conveys in l o lake 

 Joux much more water than evaporation removes 

 from it. This latter lake, whence there issues no 

 river, preserves, notwithstanding, a stated eleva- 

 tion which is nearly uniform. "It is," says Saus- 

 sure, "because nature has provided for these wa- 

 ters subterranean issues, by which they are en- 

 gulfed and disappear. * * * * As it is of 

 the greatest consequence for the inhabitants of 

 this valley to preserve these natural drains, with- 

 out which their nrable lands and their habitations 

 would be immediately overflowed, they preserve 

 them with the greatest possible care; and when 

 they perceive that they do not take off' the water 

 with sufficient velocity, they themselves open new 



* It is the property of absorbing, of drinking up the 

 surface waters, possessed by certain natural and artifi- 

 cial openings, which has given the names of boit-tovt, 

 of betoirs or boitards, to these drain-wells in certain 

 jti^tricts. 



ones. For this purpose, all that is necessary is to 

 sink a pit fifteen or twenty feet, having a diameter 

 of about ten feet, in the thin and vertical strata, 

 the summits of which appear on the surface. The 

 name of entonnoirs (funnels) is given to these 

 pits." * * * * "It is," adds Saussure, "the 

 waters absorbed by all these entonnoirs, that are 

 observed to rise from the earth, and form a large 

 spring, which is also called Orbe, at the distance 

 of two miles below the southern extremity of the 

 lake." In this passage of two miles, the absorb- 

 ed waters descend 680 feet. 



A manufacturer of potato starch at V T ilIetaneuse, 

 a small village about Ihree miles from St. Denis, 

 in the winter 1832 — 3, by means of a pit sunk to 

 the depth of certain absorbing stratified beds, got 

 rid of not less than 16,000 gallons of impure wa- 

 ter per dciy, the stench from which had given rise 

 to serious complaints, which probably would have 

 compelled him to give up his establishment. Af- 

 ter six months of daily absorption, nothing was 

 found at the bottom of the pit except sand, and 

 this has been uniformly the case from the first. 



From the Farmer anil Gardener. 

 THE CHESOAOD1UM QUINOA. 



The plant described below, has been success- 

 fully cultivated in and near this city by Mr. Gideon 

 B. Smith, since 1829. In 1830 he presented us 

 with a dish of it, and we can bear testimony to its 

 fine qualities. At the instance of Mr. Smith, a 

 lieutenant in our navy procured two bottles of the 

 seed from a farmer in the mountains some distance 

 from Chili. They were procured in the interior 

 at the suggestion of Mr. Smith, because the arti- 

 cle as sold in the shops of Peru but rarely germi- 

 nates, owing to its having been submitted to a 

 process of heating to destroy the egg of an insect 

 of the weevil kind, which is deposited on if. To 

 this cause it is, that we are to ascribe the ill suc- 

 cess which has generally attended the attempts to 

 introduce its culture both in Europe and this coun- 

 try. It has been brought here by our sea cap- 

 tains occasionally since about 1805 or 1806; but 

 has rarely if ever vegetated, and was given up by 

 most who tried its cultivation as impracticable: 

 fortunately, however, it fell to the lot of a man 

 who never tires in the pursuit of science — or in 

 his endeavors to add to the comforts of life — to un- 

 fold the mystery of its unfruitfulness, and apply 

 the lemedy — and to him our countrymen are in- 

 debted, for one of the greatest delicacies of the 

 vegetable family which has been introduced 

 among us for many years. 



From the Gardener's (English) Magazine. 



Humboldt states (as we have quoted in the 

 Encyc. of Gard. 2nd edit., §948,) that this plant, 

 in Mexico, ranks in utility with the potato, the 

 maze, and the wheat. The leaves are used as 

 spinach or sorrel, or as greens; and the seeds in 

 soups and broths, or as rice. Throughout a great 

 part of South America, and especially in Peru, 

 the seeds are in as common use as rice is in Hin- 

 dostan. The seeds are considered more heating 

 than rice, and on that account they are frequently 

 given to domestic poultry to make them lay early, 

 The plant is an annual, and in general appear- 

 ance resembles the A"' triplex hortensis, or French 



