2204. An Artesian well is a 'cylindrical perforation bored vertically down through one or more of the geological strata of the earth, till it passes into a porous gravel bed containing water, placed under such incumbent pressure as to make it mount up through the perforation, either to the surface or to a height convenient for the operation of a pump. In the first case, these wells are called spouting or overflowing. This property is not directly proportional to the depth, as might at first sight be supposed, but to the subjacent pressure upon the water. We do not know exactly the period at which the borer or sound was applied to the investigation of subterranean fountains, but we believe the first overflowing wells were made in the ancient French province of Artois, whence the name of Artesian.' (Ure's Dictionary of Arts, &c., p. 57.) These wells have been long well known on the continent of Europe, but, it is said, they have only been used in England since the year 1791; the first wells of the kind being sunk in some of the small villages near London. (See Jamieson's Mechanics of Fluids, p. 463.)
