112 W. Whitaker— Water Supply from Wells. 



Distillery well having come to his ears, he was led to attribute to 

 that the falling off in quality of his own well-water, the use of 

 which was at ouce discontinued. 



This led to his bringing an action against the owner of the 

 Distillery well, Mr. Tomlinson, for heavy damages, and, although 

 the misuse of that well was then stopped, of course its effects on the 

 water of the Brewery well did not cease, and were not likely to for 

 some time. Having, in the course of the proceedings, been consulted 

 on the Plaintiff's behalf, I may be allowed to call public attention 

 to the importance of the question at issue. 



That the two wells get their water from one common source, the 

 Chalk (and perhaps, to some extent, from the overlying sands), is 

 incontestable. When no pumping goes on at either, the water-level 

 is the same at both, about 27 it. down in the Brewery well, and 37 ft. 

 in the other, the site of which is some 10 ft. higher. 



Practical evidence, however, of the communication between the 

 two was given by the Brewery well being pumped for 48 consecutive 

 hours, whereby its water-level was lowered 78 ft. 9 in., and that of 

 the Distillery well lift. In order, moreover, to make assurance 

 doubly sure, the lithium-test was applied at the suggestion of Dr. 

 Frankland, and some of the lithium-chloride put into the Distillery 

 Well was found to have been drawn to the Brewery well 48 hours 

 afterwards. 



The question, therefore, of communication between the two wells 

 could not be disputed ; it was clearly a fact, and the Defendant's 

 case was based on purely legal points, which amounted practically 

 to the statement that any man could do as he liked with his own 

 well, a contention which was successful at the trial before Mr. 

 Justice Pearson, in February, 1884. 



The judge ruled that, as it had been decided in the well- 

 known case of Chasemore v. Eicbards, no one had a right to under- 

 ground water so far as quantity is concerned, or in other words that 

 neither Plaintiff nor Defendant could be restrained from pumping 

 each other's wells dry, or from carrying out works that might take 

 away each other's supply, so also there was no right in quality ; 

 but that the Plaintiff, whilst having a perfect right to pump as much 

 water as he liked, so as to draw away water from the Defendant's 

 well, must take that water subject to everything that has occurred 

 to it. If he did not pump up the water from his own well, he 

 would not get the bad water from the neighbourhood of the 

 Defendant's well. I must own that to my unlegal mind the idea of 

 having a well without pumping water from it was somewhat 

 amusing, and I was inclined to infer that if it had been a case of an 

 overflowing well, from which the water was delivered by the natural 

 force of gravity, instead of by the artificial force of a pump, the 

 decision might have been different, though why I do not see. 



In his decision the judge seems to have been somewhat influenced 

 by the possibility that, if the law were otherwise, actions might 

 ensue for like pollutions at great distances, instead of the trifle of 100 

 yards as in this case, and, in his judgment, he imagines a series of 



