DETAILED ACCOUNT OF SOME RECENT EXPERIMENTS. S3 



are great masses of limestone. The strata are older than those that 

 make up the Gondwanas, and the sandstones are very much more 

 indurated. This must affect their permeabiiity to a considerable 

 degree, but whether so much as to prevent any decided flow, has 

 never been tested. 



If the diminution of porosity caused by the induration of the 



Structure apparently sandstone does not oppose too great an obstacle 



favourable. to ^ flow f waterj tne structure is in many 



places an ideal one for artesian conditions. For instance, the great 

 spread of Vindhyans in Central India might be compared to a series 

 of shallow saucers of varying composition and of gradually decreas- 

 ing size placed one upon the other. If the materials composing 

 any of those layers are fairly permeable, there must be many places 

 in the Saugor district, and in Rewah, Bhopal, Gwalior, and other 

 States and Provinces of Central India where the sinking of artesian 

 wells has every chance of success. One experiment made at a 

 suitably chosen place might at once decide the question for a 

 very large area. The testimony of the only boring that penetrated 

 into this formation, the one at Agra, is inconclusive : whether the 

 flow of mineral water that issued from the boring proceeded from 

 the Vindhyans or not, the locality is at the edge of the formation, 

 and the boring did not traverse any of those great alternations of 

 shales and sandstones such as would be met with at suitable locali- 

 ties, and which, by their differences in permeability, might be ex- 

 pected to provide the water-tight layers necessary for confining an 

 artesian reservoir. 



A basin of very similar strata occupies considerable portions of 

 Chhattisgarh. No experiments have been attempted there, but 

 Mr. Medlicott, without giving any very decisive opinion, thought 

 that the circumstances were fairly favourable. 



The Kadapahs and Karnuls of the Deccan are not unlike the 

 Vindhyans, but they are generally more disturbed. 



( 83 ) 



