This practice has been extensively employed at Paris, not merely for carrying off ordinary surface water, but for the discharge of offensive and deleterious fluids from chemical and manufacturing establishments. A well of this sort received, in the winter of 1832-'33, twenty thousand gallons per day of the foul water from a starch factory, and the same process was largely used in other factories. The apprehension of injury to common and artesian wells and springs led to an investigation on this subject, in behalf of the municipal authorities, by Girard and Parent Duchatelet, in the latter year. The report of these gentlemen, published in the _Annales des Ponts et Chaussees_ for 1833, second half year, is full of curious and instructive facts respecting the position and distribution of the subterranean waters under and near Paris; but it must suffice to say that the report came to the conclusion that, in consequence of the absolute immobility of these waters, and the relatively small quantity of noxious fluid to be conveyed to them, there was no danger of the diffusion of this latter, if discharged into them. This result will not surprise those who know that, in another work, Duchatelet maintains analogous opinions as to the effect of the discharge of the city sewers into the Seine upon the waters of that river. The quantity of matter delivered by them he holds to be so nearly infinitesimal, as compared with the volume of water of the Seine, that it cannot possibly affect it to a sensible degree. I would, however, advise determined water drinkers living at Paris to adopt his conclusions, without studying his facts and his arguments; for it is quite possible that he may convert his readers to a faith opposite to his own, and that they will finally agree with the poet who held water an "ignoble beverage." _Climatic and Geographical Effects of Surface Draining._