A Lucky Find.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20360, 18 July 1934, Page 6

A Lucky Find.

Twice-told Tales.

How Artesian Water Came to the Ctty.

QHRISTCHURCH to-day draws the whole of its water supply from artesian sources. In fact the high pressure artesian reservoirs are a thing of quite recent development, and for many decades every householder had his own water supply from an artesian well, sometimes rising from the lower strata, but commonly having to be pumped from ground level. For seven years, however, the earliest colonists were unaware of the wealth of pure water flowing underground and the following paragraph from the ‘‘Canterbury Standard,” republished in the “ Lyttelton Times ” of February 13, 1858. records the earliest discovery.

An incident which it may be profitable to relate occurred at the brewery of Mr Taylor in Christchurch some few days ago. The brewery is situated on the north side of the river Avon, and on an elevated portion of land as compared with the level of the river. Mr Taylor has been engaged in sinking a well, and at 12 feet he obtained water. This not proving of satisfactory quality he continued to dig deeper, but as the water interfered unplea santlv with the work, he attached a common 1$ inch auger to a pole and worked with that, and having driven it through the soil about 8 feet he was met by a fountain which rose several feet. This has continued ever since, and is pouring out a large and continuous volume of water We need hardly observe that this is in fact an artesian well, ard suggests to those whose situations on the plains may be remote from running streams an encouraging method by which the all-important requisite, water in abundance, msy be obtained. The supply in Mr Taylor’s case is so considerable that he purposes conducting it over every part of his establishment where water is requisite.