ON THE CIKCULATION OF UNDERGROUND WATERS. 235' 



Twelfth Report of the Gommittee, consisting of Professor E. Hull,- 

 Dr. H. W. Crosskey, Captain Douglas Galton, Professors J. 

 Prestwich and Gr. A. Lebour, and Messrs. James G-laisher,. 

 E. B. Marten, G. H. Morton, James Parker, W. Pengelly,. 

 James Plant, I. Egberts, Fox Strangways, T. S. Stooke, 

 G. J. Symons, W. Topley, Tylden-Wright, E. Wethered, 

 W. Whitaker, and C. E. De Kance {Secretary), appointed for 

 the purpose of investigating the Circulation of Underground 

 Water's in the Permeable Formations of England and Wales, 

 and the Quantity and Character of the Water supplied to 

 various Totvns and Districts from these Formations. Brawn 

 up by C. E. De Eance. 



Tour Committee have not been able to include in the present report 

 information which would be of considerable value in drawing up a final 

 report on the result of their thirteen years' labour. They therefore 

 consider they will best carry out the instructions given them in 1874 by 

 continuing their investigations for at least a year. 



It had been hoped by the Committee that the details of the sections 

 passed through, and the character and quantity of several important 

 wells and borings now in progress in the Midland counties, might have 

 been laid before this meeting, but they are still incomplete. 



Northamptonshire. — At Kingsthorpe, 2\ miles north-east of North- 

 ampton, a trial for coal was made in 1830, against the advice of Dr.- 

 William Smith, F.R.S., and Mr. Richai-dson, of the British Museum. 

 This shaft was described by Dr. Buckland, and later by the late Mr. S. 

 Sharp (' Geol. Mag.,' vol. viii.). It passed through 120 feet of Oolites,. 

 760 feet of Lias, and 60 feet of sandstone, 12 feet of marls, and 1 5 feet of 

 conglomerates, referred at the time by Dr. Smith to the New Red series. 

 The Middle Lias (or marlstone) appears to have produced 36,000 gallons 

 per hour at a depth of 210 feet from the surface, and the New Red a like 

 quantity of brackish water from a depth of 880 feet. The work was 

 stopped at 967 feet, after costing 30,000Z. 



In 1846 the London and North- Western Railway bored for water iu' 

 Northampton, and, on reaching 650 feet, tapped a salt-water spring, con-- 

 taining chloride of sodium, carbonate of soda, sulphates of magnesia and 

 lime, the spring occurring in a 4-feet bed of magnesian limestone, lying, 

 under 50 feet of variegated sandstone and marls. 



In 1879 a boring was made by the water company at Kettering Eoad, 

 one mile north-east of Northampton, to a depth of 851 feet. In this- 

 boring the Lias rested on an eroded surface of crystalline conglomerates 

 and sandstone, 67^ feet in thickness, which are somewhat doubtful in 

 age, no fossils having been discovered, but overlie 45 feet of carboniferous 

 dolomitic limestone with fossils, which is believed to have yielded the 

 200,000 gallons of saline water met with in this boring, containing 1,200' 

 grains of mineral salts per gallon. 



The second trial of the Northampton Waterworks Company was 

 at Gayton, two miles north-west of Blisworth Station, and five south- 

 west of Northampton. The details are given by Mr. H. J. Eunson 

 (Range of the Palseozoic Rocks beneath Northampton, ' Q. J. G. S.,.'' 



