TKANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 767 



top of the working barrel ; by this arrangement the drawing of the bucket also 

 draws the valve, and should the bottom of the borehole be filled up with sand, it 

 can be removed by lowering a sand pump such as is used in making boreholes. 



The boreholes should be made to a greater depth than that required for the 

 pump to provide a space for sand and debris. 



The application of this pump to the sinking of shafts would be varied to suit 

 the local circumstances, and the geological formation of the strata to be passed 

 through. Details of various applications which might present themselves are 

 omitted. 



It is quite evident that in some situations the shaft might be drained by means 

 of boreholes outside, and this is a plan now being carried out in one or two cases 

 in procuring water for Town Water Supply. 



It is the usual and necessary practice to provide duplicate pumping engines, 

 and where two engines are made to pump from the same well, the well must be 

 very large that it may accommodate two sets of pumps. 



Such wells are usually 12 to 14 feet in diameter. To sink such a well in 

 the ordinary way is a very long and costly undertaking, especially if quicksand is 

 met with. On the completion of the well it may be necessary to drive adits to 

 increase the water supply. 



A simple borehole is made very cheaply and very expeditiously — four 30-inch 

 boreholes can be put down in a very small fraction of the time required to sink a 

 12-feet well in the ordinary way. 



Instead of making a large well the author puts down four boreholes to accom- 

 modate the pumps for duplicate pumping engines — a pair of pumps to each engine. 

 The boreholes being completed, the pumps are lowered into them, and coupled up 

 to the permanent engines. Immediately that is done the water found in the bore- 

 holes can be pumped, and supplied to the town. 



Should it be insufficient, then a small well would be sunk in the dry to the 

 bottom of the borehole pumps. The boreholes at the level of the pumps would be 

 connected to the centre well, and adits driven to collect more water. Should the 

 boreholes yield sufficient water there would be no necessity to sink the well. 



It would be absurd to advocate any particular system of well sinking as being 

 universally applicable and expedient. This system of making wells and shafts 

 certainly promises advantages under ordinary conditions; but the advisability of its 

 adoption in any particular case must be a matter of judgment with the engineer 

 planning the work. 



It may be of interest to know that the practice of ' dowsing ' for finding water 

 is not altoarether extinct in the West of England. 



SATURDAY, AUGUST 22. 

 [ The. Section did not meet.'] 



I 



MONDAY, AUGUST 24. 

 The following Papers were read: — 



1. The London-Paris Telephone. By W. H. Pkeece, F.B.S. 



1. I have already on two occasions, at Newcastle and at Leeds, brought this 

 subject before Section G, and have given the details of the length and construction 

 of the proposed circuit. I have now to report not only that the line has been 

 constructed and opened to the public, but that its success, telephonic and com- 

 mercial, has exceeded the most sanguine anticipations. Speech has been maintained 



