CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF RIVERS AND LAKES 



G47 



CADMIUM 



Cadmium appears to have been detected in river or 

 lake water only once, by Maliuga (1941), who detected 

 between 9.66 and SO. 5 ppb in water of the Urov River. 

 This seems rather high, and the mean cadmium content 

 of lakes and rivers is probably below Maliuga's mimi- 

 nnun figure. 



COPPER 



Copper is removed very easily from solution in 

 natural waters (Murata, 1952; Kimura, Fujiwara, and 

 Nagashima, 1951) both chemically, by precipitation as 

 the carbonate, and by sorption reactions with the sus- 

 pended material or even the walls of the container used 

 to collect the water sample (Kauranne, 1955). Unless 

 care is given to sampling and filtration procedures, it 

 may be difficult to interpret the results of an investi- 

 gation of the copper content of lake or river water. 

 Riley (1939), studying the copper-cycle in the relatively 

 copper-rich water of lakes in Connecticut, and Heide 

 and Singer (1954), working on the Saale Eiver, have 

 provided some information about the various fractions 



Table 89. — Copper content of lakes and rivers 



Locality 



Linsley Pond, Conn.: 



Cu ion range 



Sestonic Cu, range 



Organic Cu, range 



Total Cu, range 



Total Cu, mean 



Lake Quonnapaug, Conn.: 



Cu ion, range 



Sestonic Cu, range 



Organic Cu, range 



Total Cu, range 



Total Cu, mean 



Lake Quassapaug, Conn.: 



Cu ion, range 



Sestonic Cu, range 



Organic Cu, range 



Total Cu, range 



Total Cu, mean 



440 Maine lakes: 



Range 



Mean 



One water, Japan, over a 2-year 

 period: 



Range 



Mean 



Clear waters, Japan 



United States water supplies 



69 Norwegian streams and 



springs: 



Range 



Mean 



Several rivers remote from indus- 

 trial contamination, England. 

 Lake Windermere, England.. 



Brown-water tarns, Westmorland, 

 England. 



Pang-gong Tso, Tibet 



Saale River at Gbschwitz, mean of 

 12 monthly analyses: 



Dissolved 



Suspended 



Total _ _ , 



Saale River at 7 sampling stations: 



Dissolved, range 



Suspended, range. 



Total, range 



536 California waters: 



Range 



Mean 



Rivers of the U.S.S.R.: mean 



Cu (ppb) 



5-66 



0-163 



0-187 



11-383 



53 



4-99 

 0-196 

 0-109 

 9-370 



40.8 



4-28 



0-76 



0-117 



10-203 



40.1 



0. 07-140 

 10.38 



0. 2-1. 3 

 .6 

 <1 



0-3, 200 



180 



0-36 



15 



14-17 



10 



12 

 3 



15 



8-29 

 0. 5-2. 7 

 8. 5-29. 9 



0-60 



6 



10.5 



Author 



Riley (1939). 



Do. 



Do. 



Do. 

 Riley in Hutchinson (1957, 

 p. 812). 



Rilev (1939). 



Do. 



Do. 



Do. 

 Riley in Hutchinson (1967, 

 p. 812). 



Rilev (1939). 



Do. 



Do. 



Do. 

 Riley in Hutchinson (1957, 

 p. 812). 



Kleinkopf (1955). 

 Do. 



Morita (1950). 



Do. 

 Sugawara, Oana, and Morita 



(1948). 

 Braidech and Emery (1935). 



Vogt and Rosenquist (1942). 



Do. 

 Atkins (1933). 



Riley in Hutchinson (1957, 

 p. 811.) 

 Do. 



Do. 



Heide and Singer (1954). 

 Do. 

 Do. 



Do. 

 Do. 

 Do. 



Calif. Dept. Water Resources 

 (1957). 



Konovalov (1959). 



of copper present in natural waters; their results are 

 summarized in table 89. There is reason to believe 

 that much of Riley's organic fraction was not actually 

 associated with dissolved organic compounds: a large 

 part of it was removable by ultrafiltration and so was 

 associated with colloidal material. Much of the col- 

 loidal material in waters of this sort is inorganic rather 

 than organic. Heide and Singer's high figure of 29 

 ppb reflects industrial contamination. In general the 

 dissolved and suspended copper content of the Saale 

 increases downstream. 



The copper content of waters in Japan is not as 

 low as it may appear from the results presented in 

 table 75. These results are probably comparable with 

 the copper ion figures of Riley. Turbid waters in 

 Japan contain much more copper. Thirty-five river 

 waters sampled by the International Association of 

 Hydrology in North America and Norway had a 

 mean copper content of 8.7 ppb (W. H. Durum, written 

 communication, 1960). 



Many data are now being provided by dithizone 

 testing of waters in geochemical prospecting programs. 

 These data are, for the most part, of limited geo- 

 chemical usefulness because little attention is paid to 

 filtration, copper is not always separated from other 

 heavy metals giving a similar result, and the waters 

 sampled tend to be from copper-rich areas and to 

 contain more total copper than average lake and river 

 water. 



Taking all the data into account, it is likely that 

 the mean copper content of ordinary fresh waters is 

 about 10 ppb. 



In addition to the information presented in table 75, 

 additional copper analyses of lake and river waters 

 may be found in tables 19, 47, and 65 of the general 

 section of this report, in Kleinkopf (1955, 1960), and 

 in Maliuga, (1945). Data for groups of heavy metals, 

 among which copper is probably the most important, 

 may be found in Boyle, Illsley, and Green (1955); 

 Boyle, and others (1958); and Boyle, Pekar, and 

 and Patterson (1956). 



COBALT AND NICKEL, 



There appear to be only four investigations of 

 cobalt in the water of lakes and rivers. The results 

 of Maliuga (1945, 1946) suggest a cobalt content two 

 orders of magnitude greater than that reported by 

 Benoit (1956). The failure of Braidech and Emery 

 (1935) to find more than a trace of cobalt, and that 

 only in 3 waters out of 24, supports the findings of 

 Benoit. It is known, however, that the cobalt con- 

 tent of soils varies enough to make cobalt deficiency a 

 serious problem, at least to ruminants, and it is possible 

 that Maliuga and Benoit have been measuring genuine 



