CLIV. ECONOMIC ASPECT OF ARTESIAN BORING IN N.S.W. 
AN ECONOMIC ASPECT or ARTESIAN BORING In 
NEW SOUTH WALKS. 
By JAMES W. BOULTBEE, Superintendent of Artesian Bores. 
[Read before the Engineering Section of the Royal Society of N. 8S. Wales, 
July 20, 1903. | , 
WuHaT I am about to say regarding this question must 
necessarily involve some repetition of what I have already 
written in my different reports on the subject. I trust, 
however, that it will be found of sufficient interest to 
render such repetition acceptable. I purpose confining my 
remarks to a general and retrospective statement upon 
boring and then discuss the economic aspect of the question. 
ANTIQUITY OF BORING. 
Boring for artesian water is an industry that can be 
traced to remote periods, and the modern methods may be 
said to be an application of steam power to the means used 
for ages by the Chinese, and which were first known and 
used in Hurope in the province of Artois, hence the word 
artesian. In regard to the borings in China, a large work 
of 40 volumes, entitled Shui Hing Kin Kein or the 
Hydrology of China was published late in the last century, 
extracts from which have been given in the Allgem Zeitung, 
a Viennese paper, describing what has been done there. 
Artesian wells date from the year 2300 B.C. and in one 
district upon the borders of Thibet, some 10,000 wells have 
been sunk. Some of them reach in depth of 100 metres 
and the supply is used for the irrigation of land under 
cultivation, and more especially for extensive garden 
grounds. Truly there is nothing new under the sun. 3 
There are also evidences of artesian borings of great age 
in Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt, Algeria, and the Great 
