RECIPROCATING SPRINGS. 
tions of a single siphon, as we have seen already ; and the acci- 
dental combination of several siphons in one fountain, is a con- 
jecture too improbable in itself to demand a serious discussion. 
My suspicions respecting the accuracy^bf the principle were not 
a little increased, by the following descriptions of two recipro- 
cating fountains. Weeding Well, in Derbyshire, appears to be Weeding well 
more fickle and uncertain in its reciprocations, than the well at is st id more 
Giggleswick. Dr. Plot describes this remarkable fountain, at unccrta " n > 
page 41 of his history of Staffordshire, where he reports it to 
be very uncertain in its motions, ebbing and flowing sometimes 
thrice in an hour, and at other times not oftener than once in a 
month : he also quotes the following character of it, to the same 
import, from a Latin poem bv Mr. Hobbs. 
“ Fons hie tempori'ous nec tollitur (ut Mare) certis : 
** iEstibus his nullam praefigit Ephemeris horam.” 
The following account of a reciprocating fountain is ex- 
tracted from an article in the second volume of Lowthorp’s 
Abridgement, page 305 5 in which care has been taken to 
preserve the facts recorded by the author. Dr. W. Oliver, in 
language more concise than his own. <c Lay Well, near Tor- an( j s0 
bay, is about six feet long, five feet broad, and near six inches wise is Lay 
deep; it ebbs and nows very visibly ; and many times in an Torbay, 
hour. The reciprocations succeed each other more rapidly 
when the well is full, than they do when it is low. When 
once the fountain began to flow, it performed its flux and re- 
flux in little more than a minute’s time ; but the Doctor observ- 
ed it to stand sometimes two or three minutes at its lowest ebb ; 
go that it ebbed and flowed about 1 6 times in an hour, by his 
watch. So soon as the water began to rise in the well, he 
ssjw a great number of bubbles ascend from the bottotn but 
when the water began to fall, the bubbling ceased immediately- 
The Doctor measured the distance betwixt the high and low 
water marks, not on a perpendicular line, but on a slope, and 
found it exceeded 5 inches. 
The three preceding instances of irregular reciprocation un- Hence the p<>- 
doubtedlv diminishes the importance of the popular theory, pm-irtheon is 
, .... r • 1 V • .. 1 not nmvei- 
by proving that it is not or universal application ; as it only sallv a ppj; ( ., } , 
explains the constitution of those fountains, which ebb and ble. 
flow periodically. The Bolderborn of Westphalia, may be 
reasonably pronounced to be of this description ; as for the 
fountain 
