Artesian Wells

Artesian Wells, named from Artois in Picardy, the first district in Europe in which they were made, are wells which contain a column of water rising from a considerable depth owing to the beds through which they are pierced being bent in a syncline or basin. A porous bed between two impermeable ones will retain the water that falls as rain on its outcropping surface, and this water will stand, in any well sunk into the porous bed, at its level of saturation, or may actually rise above the surface-level of the well. Such wells have long been in use in China, and can be sunk round London, Southampton, Paris, and Vienna, but only where there is such a syncline. In the places named the porous bed is the Chalk.