a. [ad. F. artésien, f. OF. Arteis, now Artois, name of an old province of France.] Of or pertaining to Artois, or resembling the wells made there last century, in which a perpendicular boring into a synclinal fold or basin of the strata produces a constant supply of water rising spontaneously to the surface of the ground.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol. (1875), II. III. xlviii. 578. Artesian borings at Calcutta.
1860. Tristram, Gt. Sahara, xvi. 287. Here, in every village, centuries before the principle of the artesian well was acknowledged in Europe, the Rouar’a have been in the habit of boring simple artesian wells.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 33. The fountains in Trafalgar Square are fed with water from an Artesian well.
