Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/85

Rh Subterranean waters, seldom, if ever influenced by rains; 3. A class of waters coming from both of these sources. This discussion relates mainly to the second class. But what are the facts as to the flow of water in this class? Arago says of the well at Grenelle, 1,800 feet deep, "The water to supply it may have come from 40, 80, or 100 miles." There is a "large and important spring called Pales's Hole which issues permanently in quantities sufficient to run a mill at Otterbourne (England). &hellip; Springs of fresh water often rise even from fissures at the bottom of the sea, and one near Chittagong was 100 miles distant from the land." "The artesian well at Tours rose with a jet that sustained a cannon." "Chautauqua Lake rests like a jewel in the crown of a high mountain-ridge. The basin is shallow, with not more than 80 feet of water at the deepest points, and an average depth of about 20 feet. The surrounding hills are low, 100 to 150 feet higher than the water. Viewed from the hills near Jamestown, four miles distant, the lake has the appearance of being lifted up above its shores; you seem to be looking up to a 'hanging lake,' and you wonder the whole concern does not fall over into some of the valleys close around it. It is a wonder to the unpracticed observer where the water-supply of Chautauqua Lake comes from. The lake nearly fills its own valley. There is not a live stream emptying into it, save one, and that would run through a six-inch pipe. Of course, it is supported like a weary sleeper by the springs in its bed. These must be innumerable to maintain a body of water 20 miles long and two miles wide. Where the water is shallow you can plainly see these springs bubbling up from the bottom of the lake. Their warmth cuts the ice out in large spots in winter at points where they are most numerous. You see floating in the lake tufts of water-grass, which have been uprooted from the bottom by these under-currents."—("New York Semi-Weekly Tribune," August 2, 1878.)

This lake is on the highest land in the State, west of the Catskill Mountains, and yet it is but a vast overflowing spring from which issues a large mill-stream. To account for this large flow from the top of this elevated region by supposing it to fall from some other higher elevation is absurd, since there is no such higher ground from which it could flow without being exhausted. The whole mountain-region of northern Pennsylvania may be referred to as another good illustration of high springs. At every step the traveler notices abundant streams of the purest water, gushing sometimes from the very tops of mountains, and it is in these thickly clustering springs that the great rivers of that wild labyrinth of high ridges and deep valleys find their abundant sources. Within sight of the main road which crosses the summit dividing the waters of the Alleghany River from those running into the Genesee is to be seen a cluster of abundant streams which unite and cross the highway—a noisy torrent—rejoicing in being among the head-waters of the latter river, and the brightest product of