DETAILED ACCOUNT OP SOME RECENT EXPERIMENTS. 49 



pects appear very poor along the southern border of the basin. 

 Nearer to the northern border the existence of artesian conditions 

 has been definitely proved by the Lucknow boring, but the water- 

 bearing strata lie probably everywhere at a considerable depth, and 

 data are wanting to form any idea as to the flow that might be ex- 

 pected. 



(j) Other alluvial areas. 



If, from the Indo-Gangetic alluvium, we pass to the smaller allu- 

 vial plains in other parts of India, we find that there is very little to 

 be recorded since Mr. Medlicott's general review of the subject. 



The expectations raised by the success that attended the sinking 

 of artesian wells at Pondicherry have not been fulfilled in the experi- 

 ments tried in the other alluvial plains, apparently similarly situated 

 along the east coast of the Peninsula. At Pondicherry itself, a great 

 many wells have been sunk in addition to the four wells described 

 in Mr. Medlicott's Report, and some of these have been very success- 

 ful, but at Cuddalore, in the southern continuation of the very same 

 alluvial plain, the trial resulted in failure. 



A number of experiments have been conducted at Madras and in 



Boring experiments at tne neighbourhood of that town, but without 

 Madras. much success. At Madras itself, the borings 



showed that the gneiss occurs at a much smaller depth than was 

 expected, and all hopes of finding an artesian supply had to be 

 abandoned. Already in the year 1832, a boring sunk at the old 

 Custom House had struck the gneiss at the depth of 55 feet. 1 As it 

 was not certain whether this might not have been only a stray boul- 

 der, another boring was undertaken in 1885 in the People's Park, 

 but it struck the gneiss at almost exactly the same depth. 3 



1 Journ. Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. VIII, p. 248. 



• A complete collection has not bean made of the boring records in the Madras Presidency 

 50 as not to defer the publication of the present report, but a number of the more important 

 experiments have been described from information available in the Geological Survey Office. 



( 49 ) 



