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

EXAMPLES OF ARTESIAN WELLS.

The famous well at Grenelle, France, was commenced, by the government, in 1834, and after repeated failures and discouragements almost to abandonment, notwithstanding the urgent representations of the scientist Arago, that water would be found, the end was accomplished at the depth of 1,798 feet, in the year 1843. The diameter of the bore is 3½ inches; capacity, 600 gallons per minute; temperature of water, 82 degrees; height of flow, 128 feet. The expense attending this boring was 300,000 francs. The Passy well, near Paris, supplied from the same water-bearing stratum of the Grenelle, is 1,923 feet deep; 2′ 4″ inches bore at bottom; capacity, 5,582,000 gallons per day; height of flow, 54 feet. The La Chapelle well was started in 1866, with a gigantic bore of five feet seven inches, and by November, 1869, had reached a depth of 1,811 feet, the intention of the engineer being to extend it to a depth of 2,950 feet.

At the part of Paris named Butte-aux-Caelles, a well was started, in 1866, of six and a half feet diameter, to be carried down to a depth of 2,600 to 2,900 feet.

The Kent Water-Works, of London, is supplied by wells in the chalk formation, yielding 9,000,000 gallons daily. This great flow is due to what is known as a fault in the London basin strata.

St. Louis has a well 3,147 feet deep.

Louisville has a three-inch well, 2,086 feet deep, with a capacity same as the Grenelle well.

There have been nine artesian wells successfully bored in Cincinnati, a description of which will be found on [page 107].

Charleston, South Carolina, has an artesian well 1,970 feet deep, from which pure soft water, of 90° temperature, flows ninety feet above the surface. It has five inch tubing on top and two and three-fourths inch diameter at bottom. The cost was $2,500.00, and the time required in sinking was a little more than a year. There is also an artesian well, in the same city, 1,250 feet deep, which discharges 25,000 gallons a day, of water, at a temperature of eighty-eight degrees, strongly impregnated with sodium and magnesium.

The desert of Sahara has a number of well borings, some yielding as high as 1,500,000 gallons daily. The depth varies from 130 to 400 feet, and temperature 70 to 77 degrees.

The Ohio State authorities undertook to supply the capital by an artesian well. After two failures, in attempting to tube out the quicksand, they succeeded (in November, 1857) in piercing through the rock, and at a depth of 149 feet a vein of water was struck that continued to wash away the borings for nearly 100 feet below. On the 1st of October, 1870, a depth of 2,775 feet was reached, but no flowing water obtained, when the undertaking was abandoned for want of an appropriation.

The record of the boring is tabulated as follows:

	SYSTEM.		GROUP.	STRATA.	THICKNESS.
					FEET.
1	Drift.		Alluvial drift.	Clay, sand, and gravel.	123
2	Devonian.	{	Base of Hamilton.	Dark bituminous shale.	15
		{	Helderberg.	Dark and gray limestone with bands of chert.
3	Upper	{	Niagara.	Sandy above, darker and argillaceous below.	626
4	Silurian.	{	Clinton.	Red, brown, and gray shales and marls.	162
5		{	Hudson	Greenish calcareous shale.	1058
	Lower	{	Trenton.
6	Silurian.	{	Calciferous.	Light drab sandy magnesian limestones.	475
7		{	Potsdam.	White sand-rock, calcareous.	316

Temperature of well at bottom, 88 degrees, being uniform for 90 feet, at 53 degrees, will make an increase of one degree for every additional 71 feet. It was the opinion of Prof. Newberry, that, if water was successfully struck, it would be of a saline character.

Dubuque, Iowa, is supplied by a spring accidentally struck while tunneling in a neighboring drift.

At the upper basin of the Thames River there are seven springs, whose capacity is estimated at 32,000,000 gallons daily.

Liverpool, England, has four wells, with a combined capacity of 6,000,000 gallons daily.

Birmingham, England, has four wells, from which the water company derives 8,000,000 gallons daily.

Washington has over 400 wells, and Cincinnati about 300, nine of which are artesian, that were bored by private enterprise.

The deepest well in the world is near Berlin—4194 feet deep without piercing the salt formation.