195 
PART 3.J King: Additional note on the Artesian Wells at Pondicherry. 
for tlio cultivation of 12 cawnies of rice fields, or above double tbis superficies 
for inferior {menus) grain. 
“ The sinking of tbe tube will bo continued for some meters more or so to 
penetrate further into the water sheet.” 
Pondicherry, SOth September 1877. 
The search for these water sources is still being prosecuted at Pondicherry 
and in the neighboui’hood, and this has been attended with fair success; but 
the Government boring in the Ville Ifoii'c is now in abeyance, as it was found 
impossible, with the aj)pliances at hand, to drive the tube down beyond tlie 
depth attained, namely, about 550 feet, and there has boon no further rise of water. 
It is proposed to run down a tube of smaller diameter, when opportunity offers. 
In the meantime, a new well has been started by Government in the village 
of Ariankupam, at about 300 yards from the south or right bank of the river of 
that name, which, however, is so far a failure also, though a rising sheet of water 
was tapped at a comparatively slight depth. 
Here the level in the surrounding wells is at 16'40 feet below surface soil, 
perhaps about the mean level of Ariankup livcr, which is tidal. 
At 32’28 feet, water rose to a height of 3'83 feet over the surface soil. 
This water appears to have been the pur-est yet obtained in this way. After 
throe days the discharge ceased, and the water disajjpoared from the tube. 
Mr. Poulain conceived this might be attributable to accident; that the hole 
made by the borer was larger than the tube, and that the water had passed away 
between the latter and the surrounding deposits and boon absorbed into permeable 
beds above, and on this he suggested to Government some means for meeting the 
mishap. The Engineer preferred to proceed with the boring and the sinking of 
the tube, and now a depth of 15? feet has been reached without a further water 
sheet having been struck. 
The deposit latterly pierced is a clay or lithomarge of a reddish colour, with 
veins or streaks of white, such as is occasionally met with in the sandstones of 
Pondicherry and Cirddalore, below which, according to one account, is a conglo¬ 
merate of a greyish colour and hard enough to be taken as an approach to beds 
of that series. 
It is indeed vei-y possible the Cuddaloro sandstones may have been touched, 
or that the borer is close on them, it being not at all unlikely that a s ub-alluvial 
ridge or plateau of those beds may exist at no great depth between the Ariankup 
and Punoar rivers, there being here a gap of rather unexplainable width in the 
red sandstone belt. 
The general succession of beds in this boring is : — 
1. Sandy soil and sands, 
2. Thin band of black clay, 
3. Wliitish clay, 
but this recjuii’cs confirmation. 
A private boring was put down some time ago at Mudoliarpot, a small village 
in the vicinity of the Colonial Gardens and the Savaua filature, and a rising 
