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Fig. 227. Well at Cook’s Brewery, Birkenhead.
Fig. 228. PLAN A.B.
Fig. 229. Well at London and Colonial Brewery, Burton-on-Trent.
Fig. 230. Top of Bore-hole
Fig. 231. Enlarged Section of Pipe Joints

Liverpool.—The oldest wells are at Bootle, to the north of the town; these consisted in the first instance of three lodges or excavations in the rock, covering about 10,000 feet super and about 261⁄2 feet deep. These were covered with timber or slate roofs, and in them 16 bore-holes were sunk, of various diameters and at depths ranging from 13 feet to 600 feet. In 1850 the yield of one of these bore-holes was 921,192 gallons in twenty-four hours, and the total yield in the same time only 1,102,065.

The water was collected in the lodges and conveyed by a tunnel 255 feet to a well 8 feet in diameter and 50 feet deep, from which it was pumped. The yield of the Bootle well in 1865 was 643,678 gallons a day. Since this time a new well of oval form, 12 feet by 9 feet and 108 feet deep, has been sunk, and at its completion the yield rose to 1,575,000 gallons a day, but it has again diminished considerably.

The Green Lane wells were commenced in 1845, the surface being 144 feet above the sea-level and their depth 185 feet, or 41 feet below the sea-level. Headings extend in all about 300 feet from the shafts in various directions, three separate shafts being carried up to the surface. At first the yield was 1,250,000 gallons a day. A bore-hole, 6 inches in diameter, was then driven to a depth of 60 feet from the bottom of the well, when the yield increased to 2,317,000 gallons. In June, 1856, the bore-hole was widened to 9 inches and carried down 101 feet farther, when the yield amounted to its present supply of over 3,000,000 gallons a day.

The large quantity of water yielded by the Green Lane well is probably due to the existence of a large fault which is considered to pass in a north-westerly direction by the well. In 1869 a bore-hole, 24 inches in diameter at the top and diminishing to 18 inches in diameter, was sunk from the bottom of a new shaft, 174 feet deep, to a depth of 310 feet, and the additional quantity of water derived from the new hole was about 800,000 gallons a day.

The Windsor Station well is of oval form, 12 feet by 10 feet and 210 feet deep, with a length of headings of 594 feet, and a bore-hole 4 inches in diameter and 245 feet deep. The yield is 980,000 gallons a day.

The Dudlow Lane well is also oval, 12 feet by 9 feet, and is sunk to a depth of 247 feet from the surface of the ground. Headings have been driven from the bottom of the well for a total distance of 213 feet, and an 18-inch bore-hole has been sunk to a depth of 196 feet from the bottom of the well, which is chiefly in a close hard rock, with occasional white beds from which the water is mainly obtained. The yield is nearly 1,500,000 gallons a day.