History of the Water Supply of the World / arranged in a comprehensive form from eminent authorities, containing a description of the various methods of water supply, pollution and purification of waters, and sanitary effects, with analyses of potable waters, also geology and water strata of Hamilton county, Ohio, statistics of the Ohio river, proposed water supply of Cincinnati.

by Thomas J. Bell

CHAPTER VI.

The succeeding articles, viz.:

1. The Geology of Hamilton County;
2. Our subterranean water resources and well-boring;
3. The adjacent water-sheds in Ohio;
4. Kirkwood’s survey for a water supply—1865;
5. The Ohio River;
6. Scowden’s survey for a water supply—1872;
7. Moore’s survey for a water supply—1882;

have been prepared expressly for the dissemination of that information bearing upon the proposed new water supply, that will be useful, as well as interesting, to the citizens of Cincinnati at this particular time. These subjects have their respective bearing on our water supply,—that of the geological structure being especially important, because we learn from it a more accurate knowledge of our subterranean resources; of the impossibility of infiltration of the Ohio River waters, and of the formation and availability of our water-sheds.

No. 1.
GEOLOGY.

(Arranged from the Ohio State Geological Reports, 1873.)

The rocks of Ohio are:

SYSTEM.	GROUP.	STRATA.			THICKNESS IN FEET.
		{	Delta sand.	}
Quaternary.	Drift.	{	Forest bed.	}	200
		{	Erie clay.	}
	Coal.	{	Upper coal measure.	}	—
		{	Barren “	}
	Measures.		Lower coal measure.		1,200
Carboniferous.	Conglomerate.		Conglomerate.		100
	Lower carb.		Chester limestone.		20
	Limestone.
	Waverly.	{	Cuyahoga shale.	}	—
		{	Berea grit.	}
	Group.	{	Bedford shale.	}	500
		{	Cleveland shale.	}
Devonian	Erie.		Erie shale.		400
	Huron.		Huron shale.		300
	Hamilton.		—		20
	Corniferous.	{	Sandusky limestone.	}	100
		{	Columbus “	}
	Oriskany.		Oriskany sandstone.		10
Upper Silurian.	Helderburg.		Water lime.		100
	Salina.		Salina shale.		40
	Niagara.	{	Hillsboro sandstone.	30 }	275
		{	Niagara limestone.	180 }
		{	Niagara shale.	60 }
		{	Dayton “	5 }
	Clinton.		—		50
	Medina.		—		20
Lower Silurian.	Cincinnati.	{	Lebanon beds.	}	1,000
		{	Eden shales.	}
		{	Mt. Pleasant beds.	}
	Calciferous.	{	Calciferous	}	475
		{	Sand rock.	}
	Potsdam.		Potsdam sandstone.		300

The oldest rocks are designated by Eozoic system, consisting of Laurentian and Huronian groups, and are metamorphic rocks underlying a broad belt in Canada, from Labrador to the Lake of the Woods, and thence to the Arctic Sea. It is computed that this group of strata attains a thickness of 47,000 feet in Canada.

The Potsdam sandstone, the first member of the Silurian system, rests unconformably on the Eozoic rocks wherever the two are found in contact. This, as its name implies, is a sandstone, and is the first product of the invasion of the Eozoic continent by the ancient ocean, and the action of the shore waves upon the cliffs and surface.

It has been reached in the deep borings made at Columbus, Louisville, and St. Louis. Neither the Eozoic or Potsdam stones are exposed in any part of Ohio. Resting on the Potsdam stone, is a formation called calciferous sand-rock, so named in New York because there it consists of a mixture of lime and sand. This formation holds the lead of central and eastern Missouri.

Trenton limestone, with its underlying strata of chazy, Black River, and bird’s-eye limestones, rests on the calciferous sand-rock, and forms a calcareous mass of 300 to 600 feet in thickness. It is exposed in New York, Canada, Lake Superior, and Upper Mississippi, where one of its members, the Galena limestone, claims special notice as being the repository of all that rupture.

Upon the Trenton rests the Hudson group, consisting of the Hudson River and Utica slates, and composed of mixed calcareous and argillaceous sediments. This group is regarded as an equivalent to the blue limestones, or Cincinnati group, which are of special interest to the inhabitants of Ohio, inasmuch as they are the lowest rocks exposed within our territory.

These older rocks are brought to the surface by an axis of upheaval, reaching from Nashville to Lake Erie. They have been still further exposed by the cutting down of the valley of the Ohio, near Cincinnati, where 800 feet of the series are exposed to view. The wells on the upper Cumberland, in Kentucky, were sunk in rocks of the Hudson age. The earthy limestones of the Hudson period indicate a shallow and retreating sea, an approach to land conditions, and the completion of one circle of deposition.

The rocks next in order are:

The Oneida conglomerate marks a period of land subsidence, or water elevation. It is composed of coarse materials torn from the coast by shore waves. The system is found in central New York.

The Medina sandstone.—A period of mechanical sediments. In New York it is 300 to 400 feet in thickness. It has been struck in borings for oil in northern Ohio, but not well marked.

Clinton Group, in Ohio, is represented by a limestone 15 to 20 feet thick, an outcrop following the line of junction of the Lower and Upper Silurian.

Niagara Group is above the Clinton and occupies a wide-spread and more important formation, composed of equal masses of limestone and shale. This is the rock that underlies Chicago. The Niagara and Clinton overlie the Cincinnati Group.

Salina is the formation from which the salt is obtained at Syracuse. In northern Ohio it overlies the Niagara, and contains the gypsum of Sandusky. This deposition marks the era of a retiring sea, which left a series of shallow basins that became great evaporating pans.

Helderburg group is the surface rock of a large area in Ohio, and forms a summit of the Upper Silurian, and completes a circle of sedimentary formation corresponding, in a way, with that of the Lower Silurian.

The Trenton groups are nearly pure carbonate of lime, while those of the Niagara series—Clinton, Niagara, and Waterlime—are highly magnesian.

The Devonian age contains many strange forms of ancient life. In the Mississippi Valley, the Devonian strata are mostly calcareous, and much thinner than in New York and Pennsylvania, showing plainly that here, as in eastern Canada, open sea prevailed during this age, and that the Cincinnati Arch formed a land surface probably throughout all the Devonian ages. The Devonian system comprise:

Oriskany sandstones.

Corniferous limestone.—An open sea deposit. The average thickness in Ohio is 100 feet, and forms two belts of outcrop on opposite sides of the Cincinnati arch. The rock contains 20 per cent. of magnesia. Fragments of land plants and limbs of trees are found in this group.

Hamilton group.—A soft, blue limestone in Ohio.

Huron shale—exhibits a prevailing black color, and contains 10 per cent. of combustible matter. The line of its outcrop is marked by oil and gas springs. It is exposed in Kentucky and Tennessee, on both sides of Cincinnati anticlinal. It contains a large amount of carbon, derived from sea-weeds.

Erie shales is the name given to the Huron shale in northern Ohio and Lake Erie.

The carboniferous system is the highest group of rocks found in Ohio, and holds nearly all the beds of coal. As this period is not relative to Hamilton County, we shall only briefly refer to it.

At the period of the formation of the lowest bed of coal, the level of the carboniferous continent would seem to have been the highest; for when the stratum of bituminous matter had accumulated to the depth of a few feet, it was submerged by water, that brought shales and sandstone, and spread them in layers of many feet in thickness above it, before the requisite conditions were reached for the formation of another stratum. The intervals of repose, when the surface of the land was nearly at a level with the sea, were marked by the carbonaceous matter, and the thickness of each stratum measures the length of time during which this state of quiescence continued.

The changes of level were apparently all in one direction, that of submergence. During the epoch of the coal measure, the surface of the land and at the sea level, while the first stratum of coal was forming, was depressed until there had been deposited upon it a series of strata, which measured in Ohio, before being eroded, fully 2,000 feet in thickness, and included at least twelve workable seams of coal, with a great number of thinner ones.

[ click here for larger image.]

Water Works Weather Chart for 1880
From Signal Service Records

At the time of the formation of the highest coal-beds, the Alleghany Mountain system was elevated, and an area including most of the States of our Union was raised above the ocean, never again, to the present time, submerged. The anthracite coal basins of Pennsylvania were once a part of the Alleghany coal-field, but were isolated by the upheaval and erosion of the mountain ridges; and by this disturbance, all the rocks were more or less metamorphosed, and most of the volatile ingredients of the coal driven off, leaving it in the condition of anthracite.

THE DEPOSITS OF DRIFT.

The period immediately following the Tertiary age [but separated from it by we know not how many years] presents a complete change in the physical condition, that during this time the pervading warmth of the Tertiary was changed to an Arctic cold. While, in the former age, the climate of our Southern States was carried to Greenland; in the latter, or drift period, the present Greenland was brought as far south as the Ohio. This was when we had our icebergs or glacial age. The gravel, the bowlders, and an unstratified clay thickly studded with small fragments of rock, are the glacial surface-covering. Mingled with these are found many pebbles and bowlders of crystalline rock, such as are found north of the great lakes.

The finding of large bowlders in fields are the deposit of icebergs that once floated over our country. The glaziers reached as far as Cincinnati, planing, grinding down, smoothing all rock surfaces, and excavating the basins of our great lakes. The retreat of the glaciers left clay and bowlders and a great inland sea of fresh water, filling basins, before occupied by ice, 500 feet above the present surface of Lake Erie. At a later period, by continental elevation or the removal of barriers to drainage, the water level was gradually depressed until the inland sea was reduced to the comparative insignificance of our great lakes.

The descent of the water by motion of the waves, cut the well-marked terraces and edges.

CINCINNATI ANTICLINAL.

The term, Cincinnati Group, is now applied to the blue limestone series, and is an equivalent, in the geological nomenclature, to the Hudson Group of New York.

Its thickness is estimated at 1,000 feet. The line of upheaval passes from the south line of Tennessee, with a direction a little east of north, through Cincinnati to Lake Erie. Throughout its whole length the strata are raised in a distinct arch, from which they dip away, on the one side under the Alleghany coal-field, on the other beneath the coal basin of Indiana and Illinois.

The bearing of this axis of elevation is nearly parallel with that of the folds of the Alleghanies; that the date of its upheaval was subsequent to the carboniferous, and anterior to the Triassic period. The line, north of Cincinnati, extends from the Ohio River in a direction a little east of north to the lake shore, between Sandusky and Toledo. In consequence of the erosion, which all the region bordering the Cincinnati Arch has suffered, the line of the axis presents no conspicuous topographical features. About Cincinnati the summit of the arch has been much more deeply and extensively removed than farther north, yet this is still higher than its northern prolongation.

There is every reason to believe, therefore, that this was originally the highest part of that portion of the arch within Ohio, and, in common with the Blue Grass district of Kentucky, the blue limestone area about Cincinnati is the most elevated portion of the ridge; that which has been the longest above the sea level and suffered most from surface erosion. We find here a line or tract from which the strata dipped on both sides in opposite directions.

The strata, that are found in the tops of the Cincinnati hills, can be followed to the eastern side of Brown County, where they seem to disappear beneath the river with a marked easterly dip; while below Cincinnati, near Madison, Indiana, the same beds are carried beneath the river by a strong westerly dip. The Cincinnati anticlinal, unlike the folds of the Appalachian system, generally has its longer slope to the westward, and its steeper descent towards the east, estimated at 35 feet per mile. In the western half of the State, and especially along the summit of the Cincinnati Arch, the dip of the strata is strongly northward, amounting to about 1,000 feet between the Ohio and the lake. The surface of the Cincinnati Group is in Highland County, about 500 feet above Lake Erie, while on the lake shore it is nearly 400 feet below the lake. These figures do not represent the entire dip, inasmuch as the crown of the arch is extensively eroded where it crosses the Ohio in Clermont County. The Cincinnati section was originally crowned, there is little reason to doubt, with the Lebanon beds [the highest rocks of the Cincinnati group] in whole or in part, which suffered by erosion, forming our valleys of to-day.

The surface of the blue limestone, near Lebanon, is 441 feet above Lake Erie, while the same rocks were found in the Columbus well to be 721 feet below Lake Erie, a dip of 1,167 feet in a distance of about 70 miles by an air line, or 16.6 feet per mile.

Toward the northern extremity of the arch the dip is north-west and more rapid, the strata descending under the Michigan coal-field. Near the lake-shore the minimum dip is 20 feet to the mile, while on the Ohio it is 40 feet. The easterly dip is a succession of steps or waves beneath the trough of the Alleghany coal-field, the axis of which passes near or beyond our eastern border. This dip is so great that the lowest stratum exposed on the crown of the Cincinnati arch is on the eastern side of the State, buried about 2,000 feet beneath the surface. East of the Ohio all the rocks rise again, and not only the lowest exposed in our State, but even those which underlie them, crop out on the flanks and summits of the Alleghany Mountains. Along the Kentucky River from Frankfort to Nicholasville, and at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the basal portion of the blue limestone series is exposed to view; and if it was originally as thick at these points as elsewhere, not less than 800 to 1,000 feet of the upper part have been removed.

HAMILTON COUNTY.

Strictly speaking there are no hills in Hamilton County, the surface being all referable to the tablelands and to the valleys worn in them. The elevated lands, called hills, are merely isolated remnants of the old plateau, which have, thus far, escaped the long continued inundation. This isolation is effected by the Little Miami, the Ohio, the Millcreek Valleys, and the abandoned channel of the Great Miami.

The bedded rocks of the Cincinnati section are as follows:

Lebanon beds,	293 feet	{ Hill quarry beds,	125 feet
Cincinnati beds proper,	425 feet —	{ Eden shales,	250 feet
Mt. Pleasant beds,	50 feet	{ River quarry,	50 feet
	—–
Total,	768 feet

The Mt. Pleasant beds are so named because, at the Ohio River bed at this point, they are the lowest of the exposed beds, and underlie the lowest beds at Cincinnati by 50 feet. The Cincinnati beds have their inferior limit at low water of the Ohio, and for an upper boundary the highest stratum found in the Cincinnati hills. Their greatest elevation, above low water-mark, is 450 feet. The Eden, or middle shale, is so named because of its prominence in Eden Park hills. It has no economical value, indeed its relation to economical interests are mainly in the way of disadvantages to be overcome, because of its instable character. Of the 250 feet not more than one foot in ten is limestone, the remainder being shales, clay, or soapstones. These shales have scarcely tenacity enough to hold their place in steep descents, still less, when they have been removed from their original beds, can they be made to cohere, and they form treacherous foundations for buildings erected, or for roadways constructed upon them.

The strata of river quarry-beds are comparatively but little exposed. A moderate amount of building-stone of superior quality is taken from the Covington quarries. But little can be burned into lime, but the concretions constitute a hydraulic lime of great energy.

The Lebanon beds, in contrast to the Mt. Pleasant beds, are the highest of the Cincinnati group, and the location determine their name.

The drift formations are divided into—

1. Drift deposits of the highlands and slopes.

2. Drift deposits of the lowlands and valley drift-beds.

The upland drift has no uniformity in the order of formations aside from the monotonous deposits of yellow clay, which, when filled with water, becomes quicksand. But little clean gravel occurs in the upland, and bowlders also are unfrequent. The drift clays come largely from the waste of blue limestone effected by glacial attrition, while the natural soil has the same origin, except the work of disintegration has been done by the slow action of the atmosphere.

The lowland drift consists of the following terraces, in a descending order:

	FEET.
Soil	2 to 5
Gravel and sand with seams of loam,	40 to 60
Brick clay with sand and loam,	20 to 30
Buried soil with trees, leaves, etc.,	5 to 10
Gravel and clay,	5 to 10
	— —
Total,	72 115

The gravel of the Ohio differs from the Miami in being largely composed of sandstone pebbles instead of limestone.

A formation of local occurrences, known as the blue or Springfield clay, is found in a few places, but in limited, vertical and horizontal, extent. The greatest thickness, of more than 30 feet, is found on north Pearl Street, above Pike.

The broad valley, now occupied in part by Millcreek, extending from the present valley of the Great Miami at Hamilton to the Clifton hills, just north of Cincinnati, separates into two branches, one passing to the north and east of the city, and entering the valley of the Little Miami between Red Bank station and Plainville, while the other branch is the present valley of the Millcreek. There are no rocky barriers (nothing, in fact, but the same drift terraces that make the walls of its present course) to shut out the Great Miami from entering the Ohio valley at the same points where the Little Miami and Millcreek enter. There is every reason to believe that this was once its course.

Another of the earlier courses of the Great Miami, is now occupied by the Dry Fork of the White Water; still a third of the old channels is found near Cleves, Miami Township, where the Miami approaches within one-half mile of the Ohio, but is blocked from entering it by a ridge 150 to 175 feet, composed of glacial drift, and instead makes a circuitous route of 10 miles for an outlet.

The well of Timothy Kirby, in Cumminsville, developed the following borings:

	FEET.
Soil and brick clay,	12
Sand,	4
Blue clay with gravel,	30
Gravel,	19
Coarse sand,	3
Sand, with fragments of bituminous coal,	11
Blue clay with gravel. (Low water of Ohio River.)	9
Blue clay—fine sand, sprinkled with coal,	16
Sand, water-worn gravel, blue clay, with occasional fragments of bituminous clay. Shales of blue limestone group,	43
	—–
Total,	151

A remarkable feature of the Millcreek is here presented, of the present bed being at a higher level by 120 feet, than that of the ancient channel,—an erosion that could not have been effected under existing circumstances, but more probable, to the glacial period.

The coal-field wastes are also unaccountable.

No. 2.
OUR SUBTERRANEAN WATER RESOURCES.

Underlying our drift formation is that impervious strata of blue limestone, 1,000 feet in thickness, through which no water can circulate. The lowest limit of this mass of stone is at low water of the Ohio River, at Cincinnati, from which point it anticlines in all directions. There are crevices or pockets, however, in which water has been accidentally found. The following are examples:

NAME OF OWNER.	LOCATION.	FORMATION.	DEPTH IN FEET.	TOTAL DEPTH OF WELL IN FEET.	DIAMETER OF BORING IN INCHES.	WHERE WATER WAS FOUND.
John	Vine Street.	Blue clay.	25
Kaufman.		Sand and quicksand.	73
		Blue clay.	55
		Quicksand and gravel.	35
		Limestone.	25	215	3½	In crevice.
		Soil and quicksand.	75
Holder’s	Colerain Pike.	Clay.	90
Tannery.		Limestone.	50	215	3½
		Alluvial and gravel.	80
Freiburg & Workum.	Main Street.	Limestone.	170	250	—	In crevice.

The waters of the above wells are necessarily hard, although that at Holder’s tannery is used for all purposes. The water at John Kaufman’s is very turbid. The Freiburg & Workum well was originally a dug one, forty feet deep, but the quantity was insufficient. When they struck the present source, they destroyed the adjoining surface wells of Hoffheimer Bros.

A number of failures to secure water in this limestone formation is on record, but we can notice only a few.

At Rasche Bros., tannery, on Plum Street, opposite Bank Street, they drove a 6 inch well through, respectively, 16 feet of clay, 4 feet quicksand, 15 feet blue clay, 70 feet yellow clay, and solid quarry rock. A pump was then inserted but was inoperative on account of the large amount of sand. They continued the boring to 185 feet, striking clay and soapstone, but found no water, and abandoned the undertaking.

Wm. Kirkup & Son, Pearl and Ludlow, bored 60 feet into rock, for water, without success. At Maddox, Hobart & Co.’s rectifying establishment, they have pierced the rock 150 feet, but found no water up to this date. At Weber’s brewery, on McMicken Avenue, an attempt was made to get water in the rock, and abandoned, after boring to a depth of 458 feet.

The Cincinnati group is about 1,000 feet in thickness of blue limestone, forming, almost exclusively, the rocks of Hamilton County, although an outcrop of the oil stratum has been struck in the wells of the Cincinnati Coffin Company and White Mills Distillery. At the former establishment, flowing gas was found at a depth of 82 feet. Another well was started, and at the same depth gas was discovered. The boring of the latter was then continued into the rock to the depth of 168 feet, when water was found. The water was analyzed by Prof. Wayne with the following result:

	GRAINS IN EACH GALLON.
Chloride of Sodium	33.21
Chloride of Calcium	4.20
Chloride of Magnesia	1.17
Sulphate of Lime	10.64
Carbonate of Lime	26.64
Carbonate of Magnesia	3.15
Oxide of Iron	12

The gas burnt out in a few days.

White Mills Distillery has four wells, from 4 to 6 inches in diameter, and 220 to 235 feet in depth, bored through, respectively, 50 feet of clay, 40 feet clay and quicksand, and balance soapstone or shale and limestone, where water was found in a crevice, highly charged with gas and very brackish.

The following wells secure their water from drift terraces:

OWNER.	LOCATION.	FORMATION.	DEPTH IN FEET.	TOTAL DEPTH IN FEET.	SIZE OF BORE IN INCHES.	REMARKS.
Hulsman	W. S. John,	Fill.	30
	near Lib’ty.	Blue clay.	}			Bored to the
		Quicksand.	} 131	161	4	rock.
		Gravel.	}
Windisch,	Brewery on	Sand.	}		4½	Driven to
Muhlhauser	the Canal	Quicksand.	}			the rock.
& Co.		Gravel.	}
		Sand.	}	180	4½
John Hauck	Brewery on	Quicksand, yellow.	}
	Dayton St.	“ blue.	}	170
Emery Hotel.	Vine St. bet.	Gravel.	46
	4th and 5th.	Blue Clay.	}			From the
		Black mud.	} 40			cellar.
		Quicksand.	}
		Gravel.	60	146	3
W. W. Johnson.	Sycamore &	Alluvial.	12
	Yeatman.	Gravel.	68	80	3½	To the rock.
City Infirmary.	Hartwell.	Black loam.	12
		Blue clay.	13½
		Blue clay mixed	} 6½
		with gravel.	}
		Bowlder gravel.	15
		Quicksand.	15			Also another
		Gravel.	29	92	3½	well 73 feet.

Upon the limestone lays the drift, consisting of water-worn pebbles, gravel, sand, and clay. The porous nature of this formation, with the assistance of a level surface plain, absorbs a very large percentage of the rain-fall, and produces a fertile subterranean water supply, whose depth varies from 30 to 200 feet.

There are in this vicinity about 250 wells that secure the water from this source. The water is strongly impregnated with iron and magnesia—a ferruginous decomposition from the fossil drift-wood found in this formation. The availability of these wells is in proportion to the capacity of the respective pumps attached to them, but their combined requirements have had no apparent effect, at present, on the source. Yet the fact can not be disputed, that this drift supply of water is a very limited one.

The practical experience in London and Liverpool substantiate the above fact, for there the underground sources have been materially lessened by the demands made upon them, notwithstanding they are the richest resources of this nature, and vastly superior to ours.

Prof. Orton, of the Ohio Agricultural College, in a valuable paper on the “Relations of Geology to the Water Supply of the Country,” refers to the purity of the drift water in the south-western part of the State. He says: “The broad and fertile terraces of the river valleys constitute, especially in the south-western corner of the State (Ohio), the most attractive and most valuable portion of its area. They consist of sand and gravel in large measures, and to this structure they owe their chief attraction. But this same structure renders them unfit to be used for the water supply of the towns built upon them; for, although an abundance of clear and sparkling water can easily be reached, it must not only be looked upon with suspicion, but must be positively condemned as unsafe.

“These gravel-beds are as porous as a sieve, and there is indisputable proof of the free communication of the water sheet and all the receptacles of impurity that the surface of the ground contains. The only relief is found in the fact that the water sheet is also in free communication with the rivers, rising and falling with them; but even this does not free the wells from the poisonous effects of the filth soakage from above. Geology turns over to sanitary science the conclusion, that the drift wells of central and south-western Ohio are, in all densely populated districts, small cities, towns, villages, and hamlets—even in those containing no more than a dozen houses—utterly unfit for human use.”

The above facts are applicable to all the drift formation, including that portion protected from immediate filth soakage of blue clay formation.

A recent examination of our sewerage system, by the U. S. Census Bureau, developed the fact that Cincinnati is polluting its subterraneous soil, to an alarming degree, by the vault system. That no city has so neglected the sanitary necessity of tapping the sewers for house drainage than Cincinnati; that this nature of carelessness was the cause of Memphis’ sad fate, which we have escaped because our soil is of sand and gravel, and susceptible of natural drainage. Yet through this same soil passes the water that is used by some 250 well-owners, still the use of this water is increasing.

London was originally supplied by shallow wells in gravel-beds of 10 to 20 feet in depth, and the direction of its growth was controlled by this water-bearing strata, until the establishment of the New River Water Company in 1600. The Public Health Act of 1872 gives the sanitary authorities power to close these wells.