Drift. 69 



DRIFT. 



Its Distribution and Character in the Vicinity of Cincinnati, Wheit 

 Considered as a Probable Source of Water Supply. 



By M. D. Burke, C.E. 



(Read May i, 1888.) 



Recent allusions in the public press to cities now obtaining" 

 their supplies of water by the system known as "gang wells," 

 or "driven wells" — notably at Sioux City, Iowa, and Brooklyn,, 

 New York — has led the writer to consider the probability of look- 

 ing to such a source for at least an auxiliary supply for the city of 

 Cincinnati. 



Were an engineer employed to prepare plans for supplying the 

 city of Lawrenceburgh with water, he would hardly be likely to go 

 directly to the present channel of either the Ohio or the Great 

 Miami river with his pumping works and draw therefrom the 

 turbid waters and attempt their purification in expensive set- 

 tling basins ; but he would penetrate the gravel bed, underlying the 

 city to the level of the river channel, and draw therefrom water 

 filtered ready for delivery for any use that might be required. In 

 this case it is known that the plain, or bottom, upon which the city 

 of Lawrenceburgh stands, is underlaid by a thick stratum of gravel 

 carrying an inexhaustible supply of clear water, sufficiently pure 

 for domestic uses. Inasmuch as this condition is known to exist 

 in our immediate neighborhood, the question at once arises, Can 

 not like conditions be found where the water can be used for sup- 

 plying the city of Cincinnati? 



In searching for an answer to this query, we naturally look to 

 our geological and topographical surroundings. The rocks of our 

 "Cincinnati group" we find to be Lower Silurian, the strata but 

 very sHghtly inclined from the horizontal — evidence at once of 

 two conditions: First, that the land upon which we now reside 

 has been exposed to the action of subaerial agents ever since it 

 first emerged from the Silurian seas ; and second, that it has never 

 been greatly elevated or effected by volcanic or seismic action. 

 In other words, this portion of the country, in which the Lower 



