water well
A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...
in the
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...
Palatinate Forest
The Palatinate Forest (; ), sometimes also called the Palatine Forest, is a List of landscapes in Rhineland-Palatinate, low-mountain region in southwestern Germany, located in the Palatinate (region), Palatinate in the state of Rhineland-Palatina ...
. The well was probably driven around 1600 and was used originally to supply
drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water that is safe for ingestion, either when drunk directly in liquid form or consumed indirectly through food preparation. It is often (but not always) supplied through taps, in which case it is also calle ...
In the vicinity of the well is the Eckbach stream, which has its own source four kilometres upstream and is a left
tributary
A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...
of the
River Rhine
The Rhine ( ) is one of the major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Swiss-Austrian border. From Lake Const ...
. It picks up the water from the 20 Pipe Well, which today supplies the greatest amount of water to the stream. Running past the fountain is the 23-kilometre-long Eckbach Mill Path, which begins at the source of the Eckbach in Hertlingshausen and follows it downstream to Dirmstein in the
Upper Rhine Plain
The Upper Rhine Plain, Rhine Rift Valley or Upper Rhine Graben ( German: ''Oberrheinische Tiefebene'', ''Oberrheinisches Tiefland'' or ''Oberrheingraben'', French: ''Vallée du Rhin'') is a major rift, about and on average , between Basel in the ...
.
Layout
The well is fed by the strongest fracture spring (''Spaltenquelle'') in the Palatinate. The water rises from a
fracture
Fracture is the appearance of a crack or complete separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress (mechanics), stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacemen ...
and is initially impounded into two large well chambers before being pouring out of 20 parallel pipes. The amount of water is controlled by a system of impounding the
ground water
Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidat ...
which was very well thought through for its day. – Link corrected 5 August 2012
Above the well is a protected inscription tablet of sandstone dating to 1855, when the well was given its present appearance; it was also rebuilt in the 1980s, undergoing a thorough renovation including some new components. The inscription is an imaginary dialogue between the walker (W) and the well (B):
: ''Siehe, Wanderer:''
: ''Gottes Brünnlein hat Wasser die Fülle!''
: W.: ''Ja, Brünnlein, du hast Wassers die Füll;''
: ''Gibst Jedem zu trinken, der da will.''
: B.: ''Der reiche Gott hat mirs gegeben;''
: ''Machs mir nur nach, so wirst du leben!''
: W.: ''Was bleibt dann aber mir zuletzt?''
: B.: ''Ein Wasser, das ewig dich ergötzt.''
...which, translated, means:
: ''See, walker:''
: ''God's little spring is overflowing with water!''
: W.: ''Yes, little spring, you're full of water;''
: ''Give it to everyone who wants some, so they may drink.''
: B.: ''God, who is generous, gave it to me;''
: ''Just do the same and you will live!''
: W.: ''So what, then, will I have in the end?''
: B.: ''A kind of water that fills you for ever.''
History
The well was built at the behest of the counts of Leiningen in order to improve the water supply to their family seat, the castle of Altleiningen, and to ensure a permanent supply. There are no records of the exact year of construction, but historians estimate that it dates to around 1600.