02S PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 1/85. 



on account of" the badness of the water, which I found to contain much vitriolic 

 acid, with at the same time a slight sulphureous smell and taste ; but did not 

 carefully analyse it. The mouth of this well was about 4 feet above the surface 

 of the river ; and the ground, through which it was sunk, consisted of a black, 

 loose, moist earth, which appeared to have been very lately a morass, and is now 

 covered with houses built on piles. At the bottom was found a bed of red marl, 

 and the spring, which was so strong as to give up many hogsheads in a day, oozed 

 from between the morass and the marl: it lay about 8 feet beneath the surface of 

 the river, and the water rose within 2 feet of the top of the well. 



Havino- observed that a very copious spring, called Saint Alkmund's well, rose 

 out of the ground about half a mile higher on the same side of the Darwent, the 

 level of which I knew by the height of the intervening wier to be about 4 or 5 

 feet above the ground about my well ; and having observed that the higher lands 

 at the distance of a mile or 2 behind these wells, consisted of red marl like that 

 in the well ; I concluded, that, if I should bore through this stratum of marl, I 

 might probably gain a water similar to that of St. Alkmund's well, and hoped 

 that at the same time it might rise above the surface of my old well to the level 

 of St. Alkmund's. With this intent a pump was first put down for the purpose 

 of more easily keeping dry the bottom of the old well, and a hole about 1\ inches 

 diameter was then bored about 13 yards below the bottom of the well, till some 

 sand was brought up by the auger. A wooden pipe, which was previously cut in 

 a conical form at one end, and armed with an iron ring at the other, was driven 

 into the top of this hole, and stood up about 2 yards from the bottom of the well, 

 and being surrounded with well-rammed clay, the new water ascended in a small 

 stream through the wooden pipe. Our next operation was to build a wall of clay 

 against the morassy sides of the well, with a wall of well-bricks internally, up to 

 the top of it. This completely stopped out every drop of the old water ; and, on 

 taking out the plug which had been put in the wooden pipe, the new water in 2 

 or 3 days rose up to the top, and flowed over the edges of the well. 



Afterwards, to gratify my curiosity in seeing how high the new spring would 

 rise, and for the agreeable purpose of procuring the water at all times quite cold 

 and fresh, I directed a pipe of lead, about 8 yards long, and a of an inch dia- 

 meter, to be introduced through the wooden pipe described above, into the 

 stratum of marl at the bottom of the well, so as to stand about 3 feet above the 

 surface of the ground. Near the bottom of this leaden pipe was sewed, between 

 2 leaden rings or flanches, an inverted cone of stiff leather, into which some 

 wool was stuffed to stretch it out, so that, after having passed through the 

 wooden pipe, it might completely fill up the perforation of the clay. Another 

 leaden ring or flanch was soldered round tbe leaden pipe, about 2 yards below the 

 surface of the ground, which, with some doubles of flannel placed under it, was 



