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Drain—well.

A pit sunk through an impervious stratum of earth to reach a pervious stratum and form a means of drainage for surface water, or a means of discharge of such liquid waste from manufactories as would foul the running water of streams. Such wells are properly termed absorbing-wells (which see), and by Arago are called negative artesian-wells, — a term more curious than profound. In former times the plain of Paluns, near Marseilles, was a morass, but was drained by means of absorbing-wells dug by King Rene; the waters thus carried off are said to have formed the fountains of Mion, near Cassis. The lake of Joux is supplied from the river Orbe in the Jura and the lake of Rousses, and has no visible outlet. It, however, maintains about an even level, and has evidently, as observed by Saussure, “subterranean issues by which the waters are engulfed and disappear.” The inhabitants of this valley keep up their absorbing-wells with care, and open new ones 15 to 20 feet in depth whenever the surface water appears to be too slowly carried off. The waters reappear in a large spring called Orbe, two miles below the southern extremity of the lake, issuing at a point 680 feet below the level of the surface of the lake.

A potato-starch manufactory at Villetaneuse, three miles from St. Denis, France, is rid of 16,000 gallons of fetid waste water per day, with what effect upon neighboring or distant wells or springs does not appear. The town of Alexandria, Virginia, is situated upon an impervious clay of from 10 to 15 feet thickness, and a common mode of house and closet drainage is by wells which reach through this stratum into the sand substratum beneath. Good for the houses, bad for the wells of drinking-water.

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