123 THE ECONOMIC RESOURCES OF ST. MAEY's COUNTY 



tamination in the shallower siorings, they are very apt to fail in dry 

 weather. 



Some of the springs are remarkable because of the large quantity of 

 exceptionally pure water which issues from them, and also because of 

 their continuous flow since the earliest settlement of the State with 

 probably undiminished volume. The most famous one is Governor's 

 Spring, a short distance east of St. Mary's City, which was the first 

 permanent settlement in Maryland and for a long time its capital. 

 Another spring, equally well known, is the excellent spring at Charlotte 

 Hall which has long furnished the supply of water for the boy's school 

 at that place. 



While the spring-water is sometimes slightly charged with iron derived, 

 in the main, from the Pleistocene deposits, it is, as a rule, remarkably 

 free from mineral matter of any kind. Exceptions are the Diuretic 

 Mineral Spring of Blakistone Island, from which water has been sold, 

 and the chalybeate springs at Rock Springs, a few miles northwest of 

 Blakistone Island. 



Dug Wells. — Except on the top of narrow divides between deep valleys, 

 the ground water level lies near the surface and abundance of water can 

 be obtained from dug wells of shallow depth. On the narrow divides, 

 however, the water table in the dry months of the year lies only a little 

 above sea level, thus necessitating the sinking of wells almost to that 

 plane in order to obtain a permanent supply of water. The highest 

 divides in the county rise to an elevation of about 180 feet and in a few 

 instances it has been necessary to sink wells to almost that depth to 

 secure plenty of water during all seasons of the year. On the broad, 

 low-lying flats bordering the Potomac Eivcr, on the other hand, it is 

 seldom that the wells exceed 20 feet in depth and sometimes the water 

 rises to the surface. In general the water in these most shallow wells 

 is much more apt to be impure, although in many places it is used 

 exclusively without any apparent injurious effects. 



Artesian Wells. — As good water in sufficient quantity can be ob- 

 tained almost everywhere in the county at moderate depths few attempts 

 have been made to obtain artesian water, except in the low-lying regions 



