86 SPRINGS, RIVERS, CANALS, LAKES, 



The editors of the /merit proceed to give a long account 



of Mr. Atwelt's explanation of this system: but as the reader will 

 find a much easier and simpler illustration b\ Mr. Gough in the 

 ensuing sub-section, it is unnecessary to quote it in the present 

 place. EDITOR. 



5. Giggles-wick Wdl* 



A description of this fountain has been given by several visitor?, 

 but far better by Mr. Gou^h in the Memoirs of the Transactions 

 of the Manchester Society than by any other writer we are 

 acquainted with. This gentleman first briefly examines the nature 

 and history of the more cuiious periodical springs that have been 

 observed and described, and particularly those of Como, Dodona, 

 and Paderborn, which he ascribes fo the principle of a siphon ; and 

 then hy way of explaining this principle and of developing the well 

 in question proceeds as follows ; 



This instrument consists of a vessel furnished with a siphon, 



upon the principle of siphons. " Mr.Atwell," says the writers of the recent 

 Abridgment, " comes now to his hypothesis, for explaining the phenomena 

 observed; and he imagines them to be occasioned tty ttto streams or springs, 



one of which passing through two caverns or natural reservoirs with siphons, 

 meets with the otherstream ina third reservoir, without a siphon; where being 

 joined, they come out of the earth together. 



The petitio principii, or supposition of reservoirs and siphons in the 

 bowels of the earth, has betn made by others : Pere Regnault, in his Phil. Con- 

 versation!?, Vol. ii. Conv. 6, n. 125, &c. Eng. edit, has mentioned it in general ; 

 and Dr. Desaguliers, in Phil. Trans. No. 384, has attempted to apply it to two 

 cases in particular; as Dechales, Tract, xvii. de Fontibus Naturabilis, &c. 

 prop. xv. had done n two other cases before him. It is indeed unnatural, or 

 hard to be granted. Whoever has seen the Peak of Derbyshire, the hilly parts 

 of Wales, or other countries, must be satisfied that they abound with caverns of 

 many Forts. Some of them are dry, other* serve only for passages, or channels, 

 to streams, which run through them ; and a third sort collect and hold water, 

 till they are full. They must also have observed, that there are sometimes nar- 

 row passages, running between the rocks which compose the sides, and going 

 from one cavern toanother. Such a passage, of whatever shape or dimensions, 

 how crooked and winding soever in its course, if it be hut tight, and runs from 

 tho lower part of the cavern, first upwards to a less height than that of the 

 cjatern, and then downwards below tie mouth of the said passage, Mill Ic a 

 natural siphon. 



