318 LIAS OF ENGLAND AND WALES : 
are more usual among the Oolitic strata, Mr. C. Reid observed 
that east of Sarte (north of Axminster), where there are two 
streams, the main one entirely disappears, apparently into a fissure 
of the White Lias. About a mile and a half further north the 
other stream disappears in the same way. 
On the borders of the Mendip Hills north of Doulting, near 
Shepton Mallet, the waters that flow from the Old Red Sand- 
stone of Beacon Hill, pass in places underground through swallet- 
holes in the Lias. The Lias there extends across the denuded out- 
crop of the Lower Limestone Shales, and is banked up against the 
Old Red Sandstone at its junction with the Shales. Hence much 
water is conveyed underground through the Lias limestones, which 
there contain little or no shale, and it passes downwards into the 
Carboniferous Limestone. In the same district, along the Oolitic 
escarpment near Doulting, streams thrown out by the Lias Clay 
at the base of the Inferior Oolite, pass down in swallet-holes into 
the Lias limestones. 
Observations with respect to the drought of 1884, recorded by 
Mr. Or. J. Symons, show that at White Lackington, near Ilminster, 
" two perennial springs failed " ; at Banbury, the shallow wells 
and surface springs were dry ; at Belvoir Castle, there was a 
"remarkable disappearance of subsoil water," and at Doddington, 
near Lincoln, the springs were <: very low."* 
Over considerable tracts of Lias clay, well-water is not obtain- 
able owing to the depth to which it would be necessary to bore, 
and other circumstances, such as the presence of saline waters. 
Thus at Rugby, Gayton (near Blisworth), Kettering, and 
Northampton, saline waters were met with after the Lias was 
penetrated. 
In such cases springs from- neighbouring hills are utilized, and 
the surface-waters from certain areas of gathering ground are 
stored in reservoirs. This is the case at Gloucester, where 
springs thrown out by the Lias and Oolites on the flanks of 
Robin's Wood Hill, and the surface drainage of 1,500 acres, are 
collected in a reservoir holding 62 million gallons, f 
A well sunk at Gloucester penetrated the Lower Lias clays 
with bands of limestone to a depth of 350 feet and failed to find 
water. J It is probable that limited supplies of water would have 
been obtained from beds at a further depth of about 50 feet ; but 
the limestones at the base of the Lower Lias are far less pro- 
minently developed in this part of the country than they are in 
many other places. Again at Chipping Norton a boring was 
carried to a depth of 500 feet in the Lower Lias clay and 
abandoned. 
* De Eance, Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1885, p. 392. 
f Sixth Report Rivers Pollution Commission, p. 348 ; De Ranee, Report on the 
Circulation of Underground Waters, Brit. Assoc. for 1878, p. 404. 
W. C. Lucy, Proc. Cotteswold Club, vol. viii. p. 213. 
Rev. J. Clutterbuck, Jouru. R. Agric. Soc., ser. 2, vol. i. p. 282 ; and Geologist, 
vol. v. p. 128. See also T. W. Rammell, Report to the General Board of Health 
on Banbury, 1850. 
