Springs and Artificial Fountains. 267 



Art. IX. — Springs and Artijicial Fountains. — From the Annales 

 de la Societe D^ Horticulture, de Paris. — Considerations, Geolo- 

 gical and Physical on the reservoirs of subterranean water, rela-^ 

 five to the spouting fountains of ivells, obtained by boring ; by 

 M. Le Vicomte Hertcart De Thury, President of the Horti- 

 cultural Society of Paris. 



Translated for this Journal by Gen. H. A. S. Dearborn, Brinley Place, Roxbury, 



Massachusetts. 



1. Water is every where elevated in the atmosphere by evapora- 

 tion. 



2. A part of the mist, dew, snow and rain falling on the mountains, 

 appears to act by affinity upon the clouds, and to collect them around 

 their summits. 



3. Thus arrested and concentrated about the mountains, the waters 

 infiltrate between their different superpositions. They follow tlieir 

 declivities or inclinations, until they meet impermeable strata, which 

 retain them, upon which they flow subterraneously, and whence 

 they pour or spout out, whenever these strata present any opening, 

 especially on the flanks of the mountains and hills, where these stra- 

 ta are broken and denuded by some convulsion. 



4. Besides, there exist springs upon the elevated plains and even 

 on the hills which are more lofty than the surrounding country : for 

 example, the perpetual springs of Mount Cimone, near Modene, are 

 more elevated than all the country which surrounds them. 



5. In primordial formations or primitive mountains, subterranean 

 infiltrations are very rare, nevertheless springs are frequently found 

 but generally not very copious ; still the borings which have been 

 made, prove that the water infiltrates threw them, as in the seconda- 

 ry and transition mountains, either between the superpositions of the 

 different strata, which constitute them, or by the veins and crevices 

 by which these mountains are often cut in all directions, and even to 

 a very great depth. 



6. Commonly, the overflowings of rain water or from the melting 

 of the snow, do not take place in primitive countries, but on the sur- 

 face of the mountains, their masses being generally, too dense and 

 compact to permit any infiltration. 



7. The waters which are found in the primitive earths vary in qual- 

 ity, like the earths which conceal them. 



