1853.] 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



237 



from ocean to ocean, than nni tlie risV, and incur flio delay, of lock 

 navigation. Tlie volunie tliniuij-liout contains valuable iiiforniation as 

 to tilt- climate and character of the country ; and althu\igli the author 

 occasionally indulg-es in a jocular humour hardly compatiMe with so 

 commercially grave a subject, it is written in a racy and amusing style ; 

 ■while it con\eys a tolerably clear idea of the habils of the few abori- 

 gines he met with ; the proclucts and capabilities of the country ; the 

 diiHcnlties to be met with and surmounted ; and more particularly the 

 ■world-wide advantages ■which will accrue on the completion of tliis 

 grand cnterprize, for the accomplishment of which the autlior was sent 

 out to make the uecissary surveys. The enormous benefits to the 

 shipping interest ; the increased number of distant voyages which 

 could be made ; and the facilities afforded to commerce genei-ally by 

 the construction of the Darien Ship Canal, ■vvill, ■n-e have no doubt, in- 

 stigate tlie sympathies of all, and in.sure the most influential support ; 

 and looking back to what has already been effected by the engineers 

 who are taking the initiative, -we leai-e it in good hands, and have no 

 fear of the result. 



SCIENTIFIC I? TBLLIGENCE. 



Bckhrr'a Artruan W,:ll, hi St. Loiih, (from the St. Louis RcpuUkmi.) 

 — Allusion was made a few days sii-ce to the progress cf the Artesian 

 ■well that Jlr. ff ni. H. Belcher is sinking in the ui)per part of the city 

 to supply his extensive sugar retinery with other than limestone ■water, 

 "which only can be found by the ordinary channels in this vicinity. 

 The well, which we think was commenced early in the year 1849, has 

 MOW attained the great dejjth of 1590 feet. The boring still progresses 

 ■without intermissioii, niglit and day, the hands, si.K ill number, reliev- 

 ing one another by regular watches. The iron "sinker," with which 

 the drilling is eftected, is 34 feet iu length, S'o inches in diameter, and 

 between 700 and 800 pounds in weight. It is attached to poles, seve- 

 rally about 30 feet long, that are screwed to each other to extend to 

 the full depth of the well. The ■whole is moved by a "doctor," work- 

 ed by the boilers used for the refinery engines. Several veins of 

 impure water have been struck iu the course of the excavation, to rid 

 the well of which, a j)uinp, also worked by the " doctor," is constantly 

 in operation. A1; the present depth of 1.590 feet a pretty copious 

 stream of sulphur water issues from the weD. The water has the taste 

 precisely of the Blue Lick water in Kentucky, though perhaps not 

 quite so strongly impregnated with sulphur. We have obtiined from 

 the gentleman who superintends the boring, an exhitdt of the different 

 strata through which it has passed. The statement possesse.s sufficient 

 interest for publication : 



1st, through limestone, 28 feet ; 2d, shale 2 ; 3d, limestone 231 ; 4th 

 cherty rock 15; 5th, limestone 74; 6th, shale 30; 7th, limestone 75 ; 

 8th, shale U,,'; 9th, limestone 38,io : 10th, sandy shale *JH; Uth, lime- 

 stone 128i.< flSth, red marl 15 ; 'l3th, shale 30 ; 14th, red marl 50 ; 

 1.5th, shale' 30; ICth, limestone 119 ; 17th, shale 66 ; 18th, bituminous 

 marl 15 ; 19th, shale 81) ; 20th, limstone 134 ; 2Ist cherty rock 62; 22d, 

 limestone 138 ; 23d, shale 70 ; 24th, limestone 20 ; 25th, shale 56; 26th, 

 limestone 34 ; white soft sandstone 15 feet. 



The well was fiist commenced, we uudcrstand, as a cistern. From 

 the surface of the ground, where it is fourteen feet in diameter, it has a 

 conical form, lessening at the dejith of thirty feet to a diameter of six 

 feet. Thence tlie diameter is again lessened to sixteen inches, until 

 the depth of 78 feet from the surf ice is attained. From that point it is 

 diminished to nine inches, and this diameter is preserved to the depth 

 of 457 feet. Passing this line the diameter to the present bottom of 

 the well, is three and a half inches. 



The lowest summer stand of the Mississippi river is passed in the 

 first strata of shale, at a depth of twenty -niue or thirty feet from the 

 surface. The water in the well, however, is always higher than the 

 water line of the river, and is not affected by the variations of the lat- 

 ter. The fiist appearance of gas was found at a depth of 466 feet, iu 

 a stratum of shale one and a half feet thick, which was strongly im- 

 bued with carbonated hydrogen. Wlien about 520 feet below the 

 surface of the eartli, at the beginning of a layer of limestone, the water 

 in the well became salty. '1 he level of the sea — reckoned to be five 

 hundred and thirty-two feet below the City of St. Louis — was passed 

 fartlier in the same layer : two hundred feet lower still, in a bed of 

 shale, the water ctmtaincd l",.' per cent of salt. At a depth of 950 feet 

 a bed of bituminous marl, 15 feet iu diameter, was struck. The marl 

 nearly resembled coal, and on being subjected to great heat, without 

 actu.ally burning, lost much of its weight. Iu the stratum of shale 

 wliich followed, the sa!t in the w.ater increased to 2'^ per cent. The 

 hardest rock passed, was a bed of chert, struck at a depth of 1179 feet 

 from ihe surface, and goiug down 62 feet. In this layer, the salt in 

 the water increased to full three pCr cent. The boring at present is, 

 as a pei'S by the statement above, in a bed of white soft sandstone, 

 the most promising that has yet been sti'uck for a supply water 

 such as is wanted. 



Observations have been made with a Celsius thermometer of the 

 temperature of the well. At the mouth of the orifice, the thermometer 

 made 50 degrees ; at the depth of 15 feet, the heat is regular, neither 

 increasing nor dimiuishiiig with the variations above, aud at the dis- 

 tance of 1351 feet, the heat has iucreased to 69 degrees. 



The Artesian well of Mr. Belcher is already one of the deepest in 

 this courtry ; it is considerably more than half the depth of the cele- 

 brated Artesian well in Westphalia, Germany, which is sunk 2.385 feet. 

 If the recent indications do not deceive, a supply of sweet pure water 

 will be soon obtained. 



Eoijal InstUnlion. — On one of the lecture evenings in March last the 

 theatre of the institution was completely filled to hear Sir Charles 

 Lyell describe some of the results of his late geological researches in 

 North America. The immediate subject of the lecture was " On the 

 remains of reptilians, and of a laud shell, recently found in the interior 

 of an erect fossil tree, iu the coal measures of Nova Scotia;" but he 

 took occasion to enter at considerable length iuto the causes of the for- 

 mation of coal-beds and their intermediate strata. The coal measures 

 of Nova Scotia, and the diflerent strata associated with them, are three 

 miles in thickness, the coal measures alone extending to the depth of 

 1,400 feet. The dip ef the strata al ug the coast of the B.ay of l''undy 

 affords a fine opportunity for examiuing the whole '.lepth of the coal 

 measures which rise successively to the surface ; and Sir Charles Lyell 

 traced distinctly sixty-nine levels at which they have been submerged 

 under the sea. Among the beds of the formation several are filled with 

 the remains of a peculiar plant, to which the name " stigmaria" has 

 been given ; aud it was generally considered by geologists to consti- 

 tute a distinct aud separate vegetable organization. Sir Charles Lyell 

 said he had long suspected that these fossils were only the roots of 

 trees that had been broken off and carried away by some sudden in- 

 undation. This suspicion had been confirmed by his researches in the 

 coal measures of Nova Scotia, for he had succeeded in several instances 

 in digging from the coal upright trunks of trees to which portions of 

 stigmaria were attached as roots. The trees thus found were sigillaria, 

 a plant sorae^n'hat resembling a bamboo, liaving a hard exterior aud 

 a soft, pithy substance inside. It was within an erect fossil tree of 

 this kind that Sir Charles discovered the remains that formed the im- 

 mediate subject of the lecture. On e.xamining the inferior of the tree, 

 which was less completely fossilized than thi.' exterior, he and some 

 scientific friends who accompauied him found first the leg-bone of a 

 reptile, and afterwards other remains which proved it to have been a 

 water-lizard similar to a species now existing in America. Lower 

 down they came to the land shell ; though it was so mutilated that it 

 could not be ascertained with certainty whether it was a shell or a cos- 

 prolite ; Sir Charles, however, being decidedly of opinion tliat it was 

 a land shell. Tlie importance of the discovery of the remains of a rep- 

 tile in the fossil tree consists in its being the first time that any trace of 

 reptilians has been found in the coal measures of America. Sir Charles 

 Lyell accounted for the remains being iu such a position by supposing 

 that the lizard must have climbed up the tree when it was "standing on 

 the mud bank of the estuary of some great river, aud that the creature 

 had taken shelter in the inside. The deposition of the land shell he 

 also attributed to the position of the tree at the mouth of a lai^ge river 

 where fresh and salt water are frequently commingled. With respect 

 to the coal measures, Sir Charles Lyell said lie considered their forma- 

 tion to be owing to vast extents of dense vegetation growing on the mud 

 banks depositee! in the deltas of great rivers, and which having for a 

 long time resisted the action of the water, and prevented further depo- 

 sition, were at length again submerged aud covered with ihbris from 

 the mountains. As an exemplification that the cause assigned might 

 be adequate to produce such an effect. Sir Charles instanced the quan- 

 tity of solid matter carried down, by the Ganges. In the elevated 

 country where that river takes its rise it has been ascertained that the 

 fall of rain is equal to a depth of six hundred inches iu a year ; aud 

 this volume of water, concentrated in the channel of the Ganges annu- 

 ally, forces along with it a mass of matter which it has been calculated 

 is equal in bulk to sixty times the solid contents of Ihe great Pyramid, 

 of Egypt. With that known force in existence, Sir Charles Lyell 

 thinight there would be little difficulty in conceiving that by the con- 

 tinued operation of such a cause, through countless ages of times past 

 — on which geologists ■were now permitted to draw without limitation 

 — the immense masses of matter iu the coal formation might be accu- 

 mulated in successive strata. 



A Scientific GolcliKgffcr. — Among the passengers by the Falcon 

 which arrived in the Mersey a few weeks since fi-om Sydney, was Mr. 

 John Calvert, a geologist, who has been 1 1 years in the Australian co- 

 lonies. During that lime he has made a geological survey of all the 

 mineral districts in Adelaide, Van Dieraen's Laud, Sydney, and New 

 Zealand, and he has brought back with him a map of the western gold- 

 fields which alone is 30 feet long. He has also a large number of 

 drawings, fome of them valuable in a scientific point of view, and 

 others pleasing and instructive, as giviug a sketch of life and manners 



