MR. •••. SLTTOX ON A WELL AT KIRBY BEDON. 
45 
I was prevented from joining the party ; but tlie other members 
went, and brought me a sample drawn in their presence from the 
well, and placed in a glass-stoppered bottle provided by me for the 
purpose. The visitoi’s described to me the peculiarities of the 
water already alluded to, with other details obtained from the per- 
sons living in the cottage.s, and I believe also from Mr. Fake, avIio 
nssi.sted in excavating tlic well. I have not myself seen the well- 
sinker, so as to ascertain the exact depth of the well, or the nature 
of the strata through which it is dug. I believe, however, that it 
is somewhere about one hundred feet deep.* 
On the 12th of December, 1884, 1 went over to Kirby lledon 
for the purpose of taking another sample, in order to see Avhether, 
during the lapse of six month.s, any alteration had taken place in 
the composition of the water. 1 then saw the wife of the keeper 
who lives in one of the cottages, and she drew me a bucket full of 
tlie water, from which I bottled a portion for analysis. 
The well is built in a substantial manner, and is furnished with 
a.scending and descending buckets, fitted with chain, and M’orked 
by a llywhccl turned by hand. I saw that the buckets and chains 
were heavily incrusted with oxide of iron ; and the keeper’s wife 
told mo that tlie water had been from the tii*st, and was still, quite 
useless for any domestic purpose, and that they had to send to 
another well some hundreds of yards away for all their water. 
Eefore proceeding to describe the peculiarities of this water, it 
will be perhaps advisable to explain briefly, and in common lan- 
guage, the general nature of underground waters, and of this district 
in particular. 
"Well or spring water, as it is commonly called, is really rain 
water which has fallen from time to time upon the surface of the 
land in a tolerably pure state. If it could be collected apart from 
the impure^ air through which it ordinarily passes, or the still more 
impure roofs of buildings off which it runs, it would be practically 
pure ; that is to say, it would be free from organic bodies, such as 
organic dust, soot, ammonia, or an oxidized form of ammoni.a, 
nitric acid ; it Avould moreover be completely free from mineral 
* I have since been informed that the depth of the well is one hundred 
I and ten feet, with the following sections : first twenty feet from surface grey 
t clay, next sixty feet blue clay, then twenty-five feet of bright sand, followed 
by four feet of iron-pan, and the last foot is mixed sand and blue clay. 
