LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 115.-25 JULY, 1846.

From Chambers' Edinburgh Journal.
ARTESIAN WELLS IN LONDON.

DURING the late session of parliament, the bishop of London, while advocating the necessity for the building of new churches in the metropolis, stated that its population increased at the rate of 30,000 annually; an increase that requires a proportionate multiplication of all that contributes to the comforts and conveniences of life. Greater quantities of food and clothing will be wanted every year; more houses, involving the extension of streets and thoroughfares; and, above all, a greater supply of water, to quench the thirst of the additional number of throats, as well as to lay an ever-widening surface of dust. It is to be hoped that the new scheme for the erection and working of public fountains will be continued and extended until London may be as usefully embellished with jets d'eau as continental cities, of which they are generally considered the chief ornament. The initiative, as is pretty well known, has been taken by the formation of two fountains, with large basins, in Trafalgar Square; the water for which, instead of being supplied from any of the numerous companies, was obtained by boring, or the formation of Artesian wells.

tic uses.

water, seeking the lowest point, and pressed by that which is nearer the surface, would equally rise, and form the Artesian well or spring, if the strata were perforated at their lower level.

The general mode of constructing an Artesian well is by first digging and bricking round to a certain depth, dependent on the nature of the soil, as in an ordinary well; from the bottom of this the boring into the lower strata of sand and chalk is commenced. In order to prevent the flow of any water into the opening, except that from these particular strata, the bore is lined with iron tubes, which completely shut out all percolations except that from the main source. Two borings were sunk for the works in Trafalgar square-one of which is in front of the National Gallery, the other in Orange street, immediately in the rear, both being connected by a tunnel formed of brick laid in cement, 6 feet in diameter and 380 feet in length. The boring for the deepest well penetrated to a depth of 395 feet, the lower portion of which, passing into the chalk 135 feet, is not lined with tubes.†

A contract was next made with Messrs. Easton and Amos, who furnished the plans and constructed the works-engine-house, tanks, and cisterns in Orange street-by which they agreed to work the In June last, Mr. Faraday delivered a lecture at engines for ten hours every day, supplying 100 galthe Royal Institution on the subject of these wells, lons of water per minute to the barracks, National in which he explained and illustrated the practical Gallery, Office of Woods and Forests. Admiralty, details of the boring, and showed that the London Horse Guards, Treasury, Scotland Yard offices, public must look to the accumulations of water Whitehall Yard offices,India board, Downing street, underlying the London clay for their chief supply and houses of parliament, in addition to 500 gallons of the pure element, for drinking and other domes- per minute to the fountains in the square, for the In inquiring into the geological relations sum of £500 per annum; being just half the sum of the waters lying deeply below the surface, he previously paid to the water companies who supdescribed the soil upon which London is situated plied those departments. The whole expense for as particularly favorable to the realization of this sinking the wells, erecting the engine-house, laymeans of raising water. It is composed, in going ing down the mains and the pipes to the fountains, from above downwards, of a layer of gravel of was not quite £9000. The water of the fountains moderate thickness; then an enormous bed of is constantly running the same round of duty, plastic clay, known, in geology, under the name being pumped out as fast as it returns from the of London clay; beneath which lie calcareous marls, basins: the supply of 100 gallons per minute is obgravel, sand, and freestone, succeeded by massive tained from the deepest well, which, at the end of strata of chalk; the whole thickness, from the sur-the ten hours, is not lowered more than five feet face to the chalk, varying from 200 to 300 feet. under the rest level. With a little more power in It was further explained that, wherever the sand the machinery, the contractors are satisfied that and chalk crop out, or rise to the surface, they the supply might be increased to five times the must absorb the water which falls in those parts. present quantity. This water percolates downwards underneath the clay, and, finding no mode of escape, accumulates in the fissures of the chalk, ready to rush upwards through any opening which may present itself.

"The property of water to seek a level when it has descended between strata concave upwards, or between inclined beds of stratified rock, naturally accounts for the success of the Artesian operation. If two basins be supposed different strata, placed one within another, a little distance apart, and water be poured between, and a small hole be made in the bottom of the inner basin, the water will rise in a jet a very considerable height, and exemplify the nature of these springs, and multiplying the basins would afford an idea of those different springs found at varying depths, and of equally varying qualities. If, instead of the concave form, the plane of the strata be supposed to dip, the

10

Not only has an important economical advantage been gained, but the quality of the water is far superior to that supplied for the consumption of the inhabitants generally. The presence of an alkali is shown, by its turning red cabbage-water blue; a reäction due to the carbonate of soda, of which it contains a notable quantity, from 16 to 24 per cent. of the total proportion of saline matter held in suspension. Mr. Faraday found 41.5 grains of solid matter, among which was a small portion of lime, on evaporating a gallon of the water. The excess of soda renders it extremely soft, and particularly useful for domestic purposes. It is at the same

*Encyclopedia Metropolitana, vol. xxv., p. 1183.

+ The well sunk three years since at Grenelle, near Paris, is 1800 feet in depth, and throws up 150,000 gallons of water every twenty-four hours.

time very agreeable to the taste. This success, to render the experiment more striking, ascends, and the certitude which the known natural consti- and mingling with the descending column, flows tution of the soil affords for procuring the same out with it through the escape-tube. The lecturer quantity of water, and in as great abundance as stated, in conclusion, that, from the result of his may be desired, in all quarters of the capital, has experiments, it was probable that the principle given rise to the idea of carrying out the practice might, in certain cases, be economically applied to either by new independent companies, or by con- practical purposes. currence with those already existing, wherever a sufficient number of consumers may be found willing to contribute to the expense.

From Chambers' Journal.

VENT AT MALTA.

BY A LADY.

Professor Faraday stated that the water rent of VISIT TO THE CRYPT OF THE CAPUCHIN CON2000 houses would suffice for the practical carrying out of the plan, inclusive of the ornamental addition, already alluded to, of a public fountain. In Berkeley square a well has been sunk, from which water is lifted by a hand-pump, for the use of the inhabitants of that fashionable locality; but it was shown that an outlay of £3500 in the necessary machinery, &c., would have produced a supply of water for £350 annually, which now costs £700, without a fountain, that might have been embraced in the other scheme.

Considering the rapid spread of London, and the eagerness with which new business enterprises are seized upon, it is not improbable that Artesian wells may become common, and thus give to the metropolis what its inhabitants so much require

pure water.

to form a 6

"WILL you go on, or are you afraid?" These words were addressed to me by an old monk, as we stood together on the last step of the stair leading down to certain mysterious vaults which exist under the Capuchin convent of Malta. The monk was very decrepit, very ghastly-indeed, I. may say, decidedly unearthly-looking-the voice was sepulchral, and the question not one to be answered without serious consideration; for he held in his hand (and the hand was uncommonly like that of a skeleton) a great key, which was destined to open the ponderous iron door of a very singular charnelThe idea is not altogether new, for house. This convent is one of the very few, in it appears that "an endeavor was made in 1834-5 fact, I believe the only one of importance, now exMetropolis Pure Soft Spring Water tant, excepting that of Palermo, where the monks Company,' to supply the existing companies with still retain the custom of preserving their dead their requisite quantities by Artesian wells of great unburied, and are yet in possession of the method nagnitude; which failed rather through defects in by which they can keep the corpses of their breththe provisional committee, than through any de- ren entire, with all the appearance of life, for as monstrated impracticability in their views, which long a period as they choose. The secret of the had been entertained ten years previously, and process by which the order of the Capuchins have formed the subject of an unsuccessful company in thus learnt to cheat the grave of its lawful prey is 1825."* A remarkable objection has been made not exactly known: I believe it is some sort of to these undertakings, which can only be explained baking or boiling. They have always the number by the prevailing ignorance of the principles of of forty carefully preserved; and when a death their action. It was said that they would soon occurs in the monastery, the most ancient among drain the wells sunk in the London clay, which the dead bodies makes way for the new-comer, can only give back the water gained from the sur- and is buried. I had been told that the spectacle face; while the Artesian wells derive their sup- of these forty monks, so long departed from existplies from the chalk, where there is not the slight-ence, yet still unshrouded and uncoffined, was most est communication with the clay. Such was the curious, although sufficiently appalling to render prejudice in this particular, that a formal complaint it less frequently visited than it would doubtless was instituted against the new well of Trafalgar have otherwise been. For myself, however, it square, while in course of boring, as having had been my lot, in my various wanderings, to see drained the neighboring wells, even before it had yielded a single drop of water.

death in so many different shapes, that I could hardly shrink from any new aspect under which it After his able exposition, Mr. Faraday exhibited might present itself, and I had therefore advanced a simple apparatus, designed to demonstrate a new thus far on my way to visit them. Still, I must property of the fluid vein. It is well known that own I was a long time of answering the pointed water, in escaping from an orifice of any form, question of my companion to tell the truth, there does not long retain that form, but varies with was something in his own appearance and manner more or less of irregularity: this is called the con- which awed me considerably; and I could not help traction of the vein. It occurred to the inventor of wondering what the dead monks must be, if their the apparatus that this contraction would be ac- living brother had so little the semblance of companied by a diminution of volume, which humanity. There was a dulness in his sunken would consequently determine, in a close vessel, a eye, a solemn expression on his livid face, half hid diminution of pressure sufficient to cause a smaller by the huge cowl, and something so mechanical in column of water to rise from below, under the or- his every movement, that it was scarce possible dinary pressure of the atmosphere. To effect this, water is made to descend in a tube opening into a glazed box, in communication, by means of another tube, with a reservoir below. As soon as the valve which prevents the descent of the water is opened, the stream rushes into the box, contracts, produces a certain vacuum, when it is immediately Been that the water from below, which was colored,

*Journal, Statistical Society, vol. viii., p. 159.

not to fancy the soul itself was wanting. These were the first words he had uttered since he had suddenly appeared at my side, in obedience to the call of the superior; and now having spoken, he closed his withered lips again, as though these hollow tones were to issue from them no more, and stood motionless till I mustered up courage to pronounce an emphatic Vado,' (I go,) when he instantly stalked silently along the dark, narrow passage, and unlocked the massive portal of the

chamber, whose silent inhabitants I was about to | though, in this expressive look (the last trace of visit. The door rolled back heavily on its spirit petrified, as it were, on the dead face,) might hinges; the ghostly monk stood back to let me be read not only the record of their dying mopass; and as I crossed the threshold, I heard ments, but also the history of their past lives; him close it behind me with a noise which echoed, showing how the good man, humble and sincere, as it seemed to me most ominously, from vault to had departed in peace; and how the disappointed, vault. ambitious soul had clung to a life which years of asceticism had vainly sought to render odious. It is sufficient, however, to look only once in their faces, to lose instantaneously the effect of the delusion, which is so striking at a first glance. The imitation of life, cunning as it is, fails altogether before this palpable evidence of their having undergone the last dread trial.

I found myself in a large hall, constructed entirely of the white Maltese stone, the roof rising in the shape of a dome. It was lighted only from the top, so that although every object was perfectly distinct, the day could only penetrate within it, tempered by a kind of twilight shade. The very first breath I drew in this dead-house, made me gasp and shiver. It was not precisely cold; The body nearest me, which was that of an old but there was a chill, and an indescribable heavi-man, had a countenance which would have told its ness on the air, which caused a most unpleasant tale clearly to the most careless observer. I felt, sensation. It was some minutes before this feel-as I gazed on his serene and placid face, that death ing could be shaken off; at last I determined had been to him a glad release: he had waited, he boldly to raise my eyes and look around. For a had wished for it; and when it came, he had remoment I could have fancied we had mistaken our signed himself to its power, as a child sinks to way, and returned to that part of the vast con- sleep on its mother's breast. The strong lines vent which was inhabited by the living, the scene round the shrivelled lips, the deeply-furrowed was so very similar to that I had just witnessed in brow, the hollow eye, all told of a weary conflict the chapel above, where the vesper service was past-of tears which had been very bitter, of that being performed. Standing upright, in niches cut long struggle with sorrow which can make existin the wall, the forty monks were ranged round ence a load most gladly laid aside. But there was the room, twenty on either side of me, clothed in a sublimity of repose upon that old man's face, the complete costume of their order. At a super- which life could never have known. And the ficial glance, they seemed all engaged in prayer; next! I wish I could forget the awful face of the and very still and quiet they were, with their next in order; but I know I never shall: the exheads, from which the dark cowl was thrown back, pression of that countenance will never cease to bent slightly over their clasped hands. Alongside haunt me! The fierce scowl on the forehead, the of each one was an inscription, giving his name, eyes starting from their sockets, the lips convuland the date of his death; and it really required sively drawn back, so as to show the sharp, white some such announcement to bring to my mind the teeth firmly clenched, all told an unwillingness to full conviction, that it was indeed on lifeless die-an utter dread of dissolution, which it is corpses I was gazing; for, except that all had the frightful to think of! Here were, indeed, again same uniform hue of dull, ghastly yellow, and the the traces of a conflict, but a conflict with death same fixity in the position of the eyes, there was itself. It was easy to see how madly, how wildly, nothing in their outward appearance to indicate he had struggled to retain his hold on life; and that they had not, each one of them, a living, when that life escaped, it had written on his face throbbing heart within his bosom. The flesh was the record of that last hour as one of most intense firm, the limbs retained their shape, the lips their despair. Assuredly this man must have been a color; the very eyelashes and nails were perfectly slave to the memory of some great crime, which preserved; and the eyes themselves, though fixed, made him so very a coward in presence of his inas I have said, did not look dead or rayless. It vincible foe; or else for he seemed too young for was a frightful mockery of life, because so fright-that-he may have had one of those morbid, reɛtfully real. I could see no difference between those less spirits of inquiry which ever drove him to the mummies and their deathlike brethren up stairs; burial-places, that he might rifle the secrets of the whose long confinement in the cloister, and strict grave, to learn the details of the universal doom, adherence to the most severe of the monastic rules, till he was seized with a frantic horror for the indihave wasted their bodies, quenched the fire of their vidual corruption which awaited himself, such as I eyes, and banished all expression from their faces. have known men of imaginative minds to feel. But when I went nearer, in order to examine them Anyway, it was a fearful face. He had fought regularly one by one, I saw that the Capuchins, with the King of Terrors, and been subdued, but who have thus the secret of triumphing over cor-the struggle had been a dire one; and what renruption, and, outwardly at least, would seem to set even death at defiance, had altogether failed in one most important point. They had preserved the bodies from decay; they had clothed them in the garments they were wont to wear; they had marvellously banished the likeness of death; the skin, the hair, the hands, were as those of living beings; but, with all their art, they had been powerless to efface from the countenance of each one of these dead men the seal which the soul had stamped thereon as it departed. All the faces wore the expression with which they had died; different according to their various temperament, but fixed, immutable, unchangeably eloquent of the exact frame of mind in which they had separately met that awful hour. It even seemed as

dered this yet more striking, was the mock resignation with which the hands had been folded together after death. I was glad to pass on, though it was to look on a corpse which could only inspire disgust; it was so evident that this one had died even as the beasts that perish. His heavy features were full of sottish indifference: he could not have foreseen that his hour was come; or, if he did, his must have been one of those narrow, grovelling minds, too completely filled with daily occurrences of life to wake up and look beyond it, and question eternity. Next to him was one who had expired in extreme suffering from some terrible disease: his face told of nothing save bodily pain; but so expressive was it of this, that it was scarce possible not to believe that he

From Chambers' Journal.
DR. MANTELL ON ANIMALCULES.

animals of various shapes and magnitudes. Some are darting through the water with great rapidity, while others are pursuing and devouring creatures WE quote below the title of a recent volume by more infinitesimal than themselves. Many are atDr. Mantell, the object of which is "to present a tached to the twig by long delicate threads; sev familiar exposition of the nature and habits of eral have their bodies enclosed in a transparent Some of the invisible beings which people our tube, from one end of which the animal partly prolakes and streams." Invisible beings! and yet trudes, and then recedes; while numbers are covnot the creatures of superstition and dreamland, ered by an elegant shell or case The minutest but actual, substantial existences, that, unseen by kinds-the monads-many of which are so small, the eye of sense, perform, within a single drop of that millions might be contained in a single drop water, the circle of an economy as perfect in its of water-appear like mere animated globules, kind as is that of man himself. The object is in the highest degree commendable. And the name of free, single, and of various colors, sporting about in every direction. Numerous species resemble the author is guarantee sufficient for its correct and agreeable treatment. There is no branch of pearly or opaline cups or vases, fringed round the science more interesting, none whose revelations margin with delicate fibres, that are in constant osare more wonderful, than that which unfolds the cillation. Some of these are attached by spiral forms and nature of the minute creatures which tendrils; others are united by a slender stem to one common trunk, appearing like a bunch of harepeople every stagnant pool, inhabit the leaves of bells; others are of a globular form, and grouped every forest, and which take up their abode even together in a definite pattern on a tabular or spheriin the fluids and tissues of other living beings. cal membranous case for a certain period of their Nor is it a study the result of which is merely existence, and ultimately become detached and loamusement and wonder; for, like the minute par-comotive; while many are permanently clustered isitic vegetation whose growth absorbs the elements of decay, and which occasionally create together, and die, if separated from the parent mass. No organs of progressive motion, similar such havoc among human food, and engender dis- to those of beasts, birds, or fishes, are observable ease and death, the myriad animalcules in nature in these beings; yet they traverse the water with may execute similar missions, sometimes repress- rapidity, without the aid of limbs or fins; and ing putridity, at others becoming the sources of the most loathsome and fatal diseases. It is, therefore, only by a knowledge of the nature of these creatures, and of the causes and sources of their development, that man can call in their aid or control their results, as his purposes may demand. So simple, moreover, and so easily discernible is the organization of many animalcules, that the physiological functions of their structure are fully exposed to view-functions which find their counterparts in the higher animals, but in whom the mode of operation is hopelessly obscured. Ap parent as are the advantages resulting from a study of microscopic life, it must not be supposed that the little work before us either affords an ample exposition, or adds new discoveries to the subject. All that is attempted, is a familiar description of a few common facts, a description which will in some degree instruct the ordinary

though many species are destitute of eyes, yet all possess an accurate perception of the presence of other bodies, and pursue and capture their prey with unerring purpose." To the uninitiated this must be a startling revelation; more wonderful, because real, than all the multitudes with which superstition and fancy have peopled the realms above, beneath, and around us.

The animalcules above enumerated now become

the subjects of individual examination-there being nearly a dozen different genera in the small phial of water selected. The first and most conspicuous of these is the Hydra, or fresh-water polype, an animalcule visible to the naked eye, appearing, when at rest, a mere globular speck of jelly, but, when active, protruding into a funnel-shaped body, furnished with a number of long, delicate tentacula or arms, by which it secures its prey. polype is carnivorous in its habits, feeding on small reader, and lead him-if he can be led at all-to worms and insects. "I have seen," says our further investigation, while works of greater re- author, "a polype seize two worms at the same search and higher pretensions would have been un-instant; and to reach them, the arms were extendintelligible and forbidding.

This

ed to such a degree of tenuity, as scarcely to be Dr. Mantell's idea is a happy one: he takes a little water from a neighboring pool, and confining perceptible without the aid of a lens; and the himself to the examination of this, describes, in worms, though very lively, and struggling violently, were unable to break asunder these delicate insimple but attractive terms, what he sees, figuring struments, and escape, but in an instant were at the same time, with the greatest delicacy and struck motionless. This phenomenon strikingly From elegance, the objects of his observation. resembles the effect produced by the electric eel; some water containing aquatic plants, collected and it is not improbable that the hydra, like that from a poud on Clapham Common, I select," says fish, kills its prey by an electric shock." The he," a small twig, to which are attached a few fresh-water polypes are exceedingly prolific, sevdelicate flakes, apparently of slime or jelly; some eral hundreds of thousands springing from one paminute fibres, standing erect here and there on the rent stock in the course of a few months. The twig, are also dimly visible to the naked eye. generation or mode of multiplication in the hydra This twig, with a drop or two of the water, we is one of its most striking peculiarities. In its ordiwill put between two thin plates of glass, and place

under the field of view of a microscope having lenses nary condition, this takes place by gemmation, or that magnify the image of an object two hundred buds, as in certain plants. A small protuberance times in linear dimensions. Upon looking through appears externally on some part of the body of the the instrument, we find the fluid swarming with polype, and gradually enlarges, and becomes elongated; arms speedily spring forth from the free Thoughts on Animalcules; or a Glimpse of the In- extremity, and a ininiature hydra is formed, which visible World Revealed by the Microscope. By Gideon in a short time separates from its parent, and asAlgernon Mantell, Esq., LL. D. London: Murray. sumes its individual existence. Nor is this a"

1846.