90 ARTESIAN WELLS. [CHAP. XXV. 



Greene county, was 469 feet deep, and the well 

 yielded 350 gallons of water per minute at the sur 

 face. The water rises forty feet above the surface, 

 and can be made to reach fifty feet, though in di 

 minished quantity. Here, as in Europe, the tempe 

 rature of the earth s crust is found to increase as we 

 descend, the water being sensibly warmer than that 

 of the air, so much so that in cold weather it sends 

 forth steam. Each new excavation at Erie robs the 

 wells previously bored of part of their supply. The 

 auger with which they perforate the soil is four 

 inches in diameter, and the average cost of excavation 

 sixty-two cents, or about 2s. 6d. per foot, for the 

 whole depth of 469 feet. No solid rock has been 

 pierced here, the strata consisting throughout of soft 

 horizontally stratified blue limestone. They have 

 also pierced these same rocks, at a distance of three 

 miles from Demopolis (a town situated at the junction 

 of the Tombeckbee and Black Warrior rivers), to the 

 depth of 930 feet without gaining the water, yet 

 they do not despair of success, as sand has just been 

 reached. 



At Arcola, the proprietor presented me with se 

 veral cretaceous fossils, and some irregular tubular 

 bodies, the origin of which he wished to have ex 

 plained. I immediately recognised them as identical 

 with the vitreous tubes found at Drigg, in Cumber 

 land, in hills of shifting sand, which have been de 

 scribed and figured in the Transactions of the Geolo 

 gical Society of London.* They have a glazed and 



* Vol. ii. p. 528. and vol. v. p. 617., 1st series. 



