Artesian Wells in North and South Dakota. 371 



wells, almost without exception, is distinctly saline and alkaline. 

 It seems very probable that the water-bearing beds of that large 

 portion of the Red river valley differ widely in the origin of their 

 water supply from the foregoing. Instead of deriving their 

 water, like the fresh artesian wells, from the rainfall upon higher 

 parts of the drift surface contiguous to the Red river valley, there 

 seems to be good reason for believing that the brackish water is 

 mainly from the basal sandstone of the Cretaceous series, coming 

 through that sandstone from its outcrops on the flanks of the 

 Rocky mountains and Black hills, and permeating upward into 

 the drift of the Red river valley from areas where this sandstone 

 is the underlying bed-rock. 



Deep artesian wells of somewhat saline and alkaline water, 

 like that of the part of the Red river valley just described, are 

 obtained on a belt that extends across North and South Dakota 

 from Devil's lake to Yankton and Vermillion, including the 

 greater part of the James river basin. Wherever borings along 

 this belt have penetrated to the Dakota sandstone, the lowest 

 formation of the Cretaceous series in the upper Missouri region, 

 artesian water has been found. Probably as many as a hundred 

 wells have been bored, their depths ranging from 900 to 1,550 

 feet, except in the southern part of the James and Vermillion val- 

 leys, where many wells are only 600 to 750 feet deep, and a few, 

 the farthest southeast, are between 300 and 400 feet in depth. 

 These wells are mostly five or six inches in diameter, and their 

 strong pressure, commonly from 50 to 175 pounds per square 

 inch at the surface, makes them valuable not only for fire-hy- 

 drants, but also to furnish power for manufacturing purposes. 

 Several wells have been bored at Aberdeen, and three years ago, 

 in 1887, fifteen wells were in use in Yankton. The pressure of 

 the wells in Yankton is sufficient to raise the water 129 feet, and 

 in numerous places along the middle portion of the James river 

 valley, as Huron, Redfield and Aberdeen, the pressure corres- 

 ponds to a rise of more than 400 feet above the surface. 



The sections of these deep wells in North Dakota and on the 

 high land between the James and Missouri rivers in South Dako- 

 ta, include, beneath the drift, the Fort Pierre, Niobrara, and 

 Fort Benton divisions of the Cretaceous series ; but along the 

 lower part of the James river and on the Vermillion erosion dur- 

 ing the Tertiary era removed the upper portion of these beds. 



