THE CAUSES OF ARTESIAN WELLS. 683 



fluence which produces such action as this is the resultant of the earth's centri- 

 petal and centrifugal forces operating impulsively upon the subterranean water 

 deposits, and forcing them into and through the natural channels of the earth's 

 crust. The theory that the water flows to these springs and wells from a higher 

 point, by hydrostatic pressure, is ably contested by a writer in the Popular Science 

 Monthly. If the immense floods which break forth in different places were the 

 result of a flow from some other higher bodies of water, the drains must have of 

 necessity sooner or later exhausted the supply sources, unless equivalent streams 

 were flowing into the latter also. Next, whence could come the higher heads to 

 flow into and supply them in turn ? Extend the process until a flow is secured 

 from* the highest land on the earth, and then whence comes the flow to supply that? 



At Grenelle, Germany, a majestic column of warm water rises thirty feet 

 above the surface of a well 1,000 feet deep, for which there is no apparent head. 

 The artesian well at Tours rises with a jet that can sustain a cannon. Chautauqua 

 Lake rises like a jewel in the crown of a high mountain ridge. It is twenty miles 

 long and two miles wide, and is fed by innumerable springs which can be seen bub- 

 bling up through the bottom. It is on the highest land in the State of New York 

 west of the Catskill Mountains. From it issues a large mill stream. To account 

 for this great flow in this region by supposing it to fall from some other higher 

 elevation is absurd, for there is no such source from which it could flow without 

 being exhausted. 



In the mountain region of Pennsylvania, at every step, the traveler notices 

 abundant streams of the purest water, sometimes gushing from the very tops of 

 the mountains. There is no land above them from which such torrents could flow 

 in such constant abundance. 



Lakes Superior, Ontario, Huron, and possibly Michigan, are overflowing 

 springs of subterranean water, but they cannot be accounted for upon the hy- 

 pothesis of hydraulic pressure, since there are no higher lands which could furnish 

 an adequate supply. If all the lands on the continent which are higher than Lake 

 Superior were supposed to be but shells filled with water, the difference between 

 outflow and the inflow of Lake Ontario would quickly exhaust the supply. The 

 vast surface of Ontario cannot come through an underground channel connecting 

 it with Superior, for the difference in level between the two is 365 feet, and were 

 they connected their surfaces would find a common level. 



Lastly, from the highest point of the highest mountains in the world — the 

 Himalayas — great cataracts and streams have poured, and still do pour, with an 

 abundance that not only is astonishing, but would exhaust any possible reservoirs 

 at their extreme tops. The conclusion is inevitable that some other force than 

 hydrostatic or hydraulic pressure exists to which these great overflows are due. 

 Gases are out of the question, for they force water down instead of up, when both 

 are inclosed in a common reservoir. 



In the case of water imprisoned within the earth's rocky chambers, the re- 

 sultant of the two natural forces, centripetal and centrifugal, will be duplicated 



