10 
Observations on Overflowing Wells 
(Jan. 
In his Recueil Inditstriel Manufacturer , M. Moleon has inserted an article on the 
Essay published at New Brunswick by Dickson, which had been communicated to 
him by one of his London correspondents. This correspondent says, tliut, without 
profoundly examining the question, he ventures to assert, that, in his opinion, 
the waters which spring from a depth of 400 or 500 feet (of which there are exam- 
ples in England, in parts at a great distance from any hills of a similar height), 
are not the product of infiltrations from above, which feed small springs and wells, 
but that these wonderful and inexhaustible jets are projected by great subterranean 
arteries, which are acted upon by great reservoirs of air which the earth contains, 
and which are often met with in boring. The author of this article rests his opi- 
nion, Is*, on the disengagement of hydrogen gas which took place during a boring 
in America a ; 2 dly, on the vacuities which are often met with in forming wells ; and, 
3 dly, on the circumstance, that the quantity of spouting water is not diminished, 
when several wells have been bored quite close to each other, which induces him to 
think that the pressure of the air must there be the cause of motion. 
The workings of mines and quarries have shown, that, in certain kinds of irround, 
the waters spread out into veins, stripes, brooks, and even sometimes torrents, 
running through the cracks, fissures, and natural perforations of the interior of 
the rocky strata 3 ; while, in other kinds of ground, they form sheets or expanses 
of various extent, in beds of sand, earth or permeable stones, — and the moment 
the upper stratum is perforated, they rise and spring out with greater or less 
rapidity, until they have attained the level from which they come. 
of the envelope. Thus there is substituted a small, but rapid and continued torrent 
for a vague and confused fumigation, occupying much more time and snace N T 
it is extremely probable that this fumigation through the pores of the en velon ,"1 
the principal food of plants, the large trees especially; the ma.r,,i|i “r 7 , 
which no external drought can wither, have, without doubt, the" mouth „f 7 
roots open towards the aqueous transpiration, which ascend. . . , f ,helr 
the interior of the earth. This vital source of vegetation would be'cuVT" 
least greatly dummshed, were too many vertical fountains opened in ,b ’ °\ 
bourhood, and ,n tbe ground which bears Ihem.-UnpublhhJ „ ‘ he,r ne ^ h ' 
Wells, by M. Azais. published Memoir on Artesian 
8 This boring was made at the bottom of a dry well !n , 
Bord and Collok, at Albany. This well was iu depth * brevver y of Messrs. 
The sound passed through gravel and elav 30 feet 
Black slate, ^ 
At this depth of 82 feet, water was found'.* but ««\7 
the boring was continued. ’ was not abundant. 
Black slate, 
11 
41 
168 
At the depth of 250 feet there was 
hydrogen gas in the black slate, 
a plentiful 
250 
disengagement of 
32 
At the depth of 282 feet the water sn r „ n 282 
surface of the ground. P U P to th * height of f our feet above th 
The quarries of Paris, and, in general i 
examples of vestiges of subterranean brooks ; r cu qUarries Present frequen 
have traversed the limestone mass at different h w* T* dry » which >"ust former! 
tortuous cavities which intersect it in all directions^ ’ ^ ° f the *»urea an' 
