IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 17 



in this direction. Doubtless no one more than the author of 

 that valuable paper recognizes the truthfulness of this'state- 

 ment. To know the truth in regard to deep wells, the extent 

 of aquiferous beds, their sources of supply, their probable con- 

 tent, and the depth at which they must severally be sought is 

 information of the most desirable and j^ractical sort. But 

 what of our supply of ground water? What of those superficial 

 couches which give us the prairie spring, the long winding creek, 

 our creeping rivers? In this direction lies a peril I believe for 

 the state of Iowa to-day. There is in my opinion no question 

 as to the facts in the problem. Everyone familiar with the 

 case will, I believe, assent that the state as a whole, is much 

 drier than it was forty or fifty years ago. It was at one time 

 in all eastern Iowa, the common practice for each man to dig 

 a well, for house or field, almost where he chose. A few feet 

 below the surface, water was abundant. There is no such 

 water supply now. Sloughs abounded from whose miry ooze 

 the water seeped all summer long, and running water was found 

 on every farm. There is no running water now; not because 

 of dry seasons, but because of drainage. The insidious tiles 

 exhaust the bed of the slough, and highway ditches on every 

 square mile prevent all accumulation of surface water. Local 

 rainfall is immediately carried away and has no time to soak 

 down and fill subjacent porous layers. The soil has become 

 dry, and for water supply the citizen must rely upon beds far 

 down below, beneath one or more sheets, of drift. This is one 

 side of the question. Resultant from it, in part, appears 

 another phenomenon, viz: the failure of our streams. The 

 creeks unfed, dried many of them long ago, except as flushed, 

 sewer-wise, by the rush of surface storm-water, and the rivers 

 are manifestly diminishing year by year. The sands and clays 

 from ploughed hillsides are choking their channels, sealing 

 their slender fountains. The stripping of woods and forest 

 from river and hillside, from the rocky banks has all tended in 

 the same direction. The water-courses unshaded dry up in the 

 summer sun. It is a fact often observed that trees by the high- 

 way keep the road muddy long after a rain. To the same eif ect 

 operate groves and thickets along our streams. The Platte 

 river goes dry in summer; and yet the Platte river is fed by 

 eternal snows. Shall the Des Moines, the Cedar or the Iowa, 

 dependent on rainfall fare better than the Platte when their 

 channels are filled with sand and all protection of forest and 



3 [la. Acad. Sci., Vol. v.] LApril 33, 1898.] 



