Water-Supply Paper Volume 293 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1912 Excerpt: ...finding little or no water before reaching this shale have penetrated it to a depth near Augusta of 220 and 257 feet, and near the Mississippi north of Burlington to even as much as 300 feet without success. Unless the owner is prepared to go through this heavy shale and several hundred feet still deeper to tap the Galena waters, the drilling should be stopped on reaching the Kinderhook, and a well sunk in another place. The limestones overlying the Kinderhook are water bearing, the chief aquifers lying in the lower part of the Burlington limestone. Ground water collects in this limestone in the crevices, joints and waterways formed by solution, its downward progress being stopped by the underlying floor of impervious shale. The upper cherty member of the Burlington ('Montrose cherts") is also water bearing. The "St. Louis limestone" probably carries water in the small area which it occupies in the southwestern townships, as may be inferred from the known water beds along its outcrop farther to the west. At and near Burlington, except for the drift gravels found on the rock and minor veins, the first dependable water bed is the Silurian. It is apparently this bed which supplies wells about 500 feet in depth, affording to some of them a generous yield. The initial head seems to have been about 570 feet above sea level, but no exact statements can be made, for requests sent to the city officials for information as to the elevation of the different well curbs have not been answered. A sharp fall of static level was observed in several wells on the completion of the Clinton-Oopeland well. The water bed is evidently overdrawn, and flows from it can no longer be expeeted, except from the lowest levels. To protect the wells at Burlington which now d...