WATER SUPPLIES AND WELL RECORDS. IO7 



that is being done in Florida annually, the work is not in any way 

 co-ordinated, and records are seldom preserved with sufficient care 

 to meet scientific requirements. 



The failure to keep an adequate record of a well when drilled 

 is clearly due to the lack on the part of the owner of the well, of an 

 appreciation of the value and utility of such a record, both to 

 those who are having the well drilled and to others who subse- 

 quently may wish to drill wells in or near the same locality. It is 

 to indicate some of the ways in which well records are of value 

 and to urge more complete preservation of records, and more defin- 

 ite correlation of results of prospecting that this bulletin is issued. 



Accurate data from wells can be obtained only by the personal 

 attention on the part of the well driller or of some one who di- 

 rectly interests himself in the well, and involves more or less loss of 

 time and delay in the drilling operations. As a rule no provision is 

 made by the well-owner for preserving the record of the well, and 

 it is left to the driller to preserve the record if preserved at all. 

 While it is not reasonable to expect the driller to assume this extra 

 expense, as a matter of fact nearly all the records that are now 

 available have been secured in this way and it speaks well for the 

 drillers that they are willing to thus make public the data that they 

 have obtained at their own expense. To secure full and complete 

 records the owner of the well should assume the expense of collect- 

 ing the data since it is to himself and the community in which he 

 lives that the record has the largest value. The owner of the well, 

 frequently expecting to drill no well other than the one already un- 

 dertaken, assumes that there is no further need so far as he is per- 

 sonally concerned for exact data. This, however, is a mistake. The 

 instances are numerous in which valuable mineral deposits have 

 been drilled through without being detected merely because the sam- 

 ples of drillings from the well were not preserved and examined by 

 some one competent to judge of their character. In any case to 

 drill a deep well involves considerable expense, and it is a waste of 

 money not to make the most of the prospect hole while it is being 

 made. Aside from the individual interest, there is the welfare of 

 the community which is inseparably linked with that of each indi- 

 vidual, and the success or failure of one well, or the difficulties en- 

 countered in drilling it, or the materials penetrated, may point the 

 way to success or reduction of expense on the part of another. 



