VOL. IXXV.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 6'2Q 



nailed on the top of the wooden pipe, by which means the water was perfectly 

 precluded from rising between the wooden and the leaden pipes. 



This being accomplished, the bottom of the well remained quite dry, and the 

 new water quickly rose about a foot above the top of the well in the leaden pipe : 

 and, on bending the mouth of this pipe to the level of the surface of the ground, 

 about 2 hogsheads of water flowed from it in 24 hours, which had similar pro- 

 perties with the water of St. Alkmund's well, as on comparison both these waters 

 curdled a solution of soap in spirit of wine, and abounded with calcareous earth, 

 which was copiously precipitated by a solution of fixed alkali ; but the new water 

 was found to possess a greater abundance of it, with numerous small bubbles of 

 aerial acid or calcareous gas. The new water has now flowed about 12 months, 

 and seems already increased to almost double the quantity in a given time ; and 

 I think it is now less replete with calcareous earth, approaching gradually to an 

 exact correspondence with St. Alkmund's well, as it probably has its origin be- 

 tween the same strata of earth. 



As many mountains bear incontestible marks of having been forcibly raised up 

 by some power beneath them ; and other mountains, and even islands, have been 

 lifted up by subterraneous fires in our own times, we may safely reason on the 

 same supposition in respect to all other great elevations of ground. Proofs of 

 these circumstances are to be seen on both sides of this part of the country : 

 whoever will inspect, with the eye of a philosopher, the lime-mountain at Breedon, 

 on the edge of Leicestershire, will not hesitate a moment in pronouncing, that it 

 has been forcibly elevated by some powers beneath it ; for it is of a conical form, 

 with the apex cut off", and the strata, which compose its central parts, and which 

 are found nearly horizontal in the plain, are raised almost perpendicularly, and 

 placed on their edges, while those on each side decline like the surface of the hill ; 

 so that this mountain may well be represented by a bur made by forcing a bodkin 

 through several parallel sheets of paper. At Router, or Eagle-stone, in the Peak, 

 several large masses of grit-stone are seen on the sides and bottom of the moun 

 tain, which by their form evince from what parts of the summit they were broken 

 off at the time it was elevated ; and the numerous loose stones scattered about 

 the plains in its vicinity, and half buried in the earth, must have been thrown out 

 by explosions, and prove the volcanic origin of the mountain. Add to this 

 the vast beds of toad-stone or lava in many parts of this county, so accurately 

 described, and so well explained by Mr. Whitehurst, in his Theory of the For- 

 mation of the Earth. 



Now as all great elevations of ground have been thus raised by subterraneous 

 fires, and in a long course of time their summits have been worn away, it hap- 

 pens, that some of the more interior strata of the earth are exposed naked on the 

 tops of mountains ; and that in general those strata which lie uppermost, or 



