WIGAN WELL.
About a mile from Wigan, in Lancashire, is a spring, the water of which burns like oil. On applying a lighted candle to the surface, a large flame is suddenly produced, and burns vigorously. A dishful of water having been taken up at the part whence the flame issues, and a lighted candle held to it, the flame goes out; notwithstanding which the water in this part boils and rises up like water in a pot on the fire, but does not feel warm on introducing the hand. What is still more extraordinary, on making a dam, and preventing the flowing of fresh water to the ignited part, that which was already there having been drained away, a burning candle being applied to the surface of the dry earth at the same point where the water before burned, the fumes take fire, and burn with a resplendent light, the cone of the flame ascending a foot and a half from the surface of the earth. It is not discolored, like that of sulphureous bodies, neither has it any manifest smell, nor do the fumes, in their ascent, betray any sensible heat. The latter unquestionably consist of inflammable air, or hydrogen gas; and it ought to be observed that the whole of the country about Wigan, for the compass of several miles, is underlaid with coal. This phenomenon may therefore be referred to the same cause which occasioned the dreadful explosion of Felling colliery; but in the present case, this destructive gas, instead of being pent up in the bowels of the earth, accompanies the water in its passage to the surface.