SOURCES OF THE ARTESIAN WATER SUPPLY. 



525 



taste. These waters, however, more readily thau pure water, decompose 

 the wooden curbing, which, being the most convenient and cheapest 

 material, is too connuoul}'^ used in this region, destitute of stone quarries. 

 The wooden well-curbing, which is connnonly pine, soon contaminates the 

 water, and when such wells, are left stagnant or only drawn from slightly, 

 the water becomes too foul in smell and taste to be drunk, even by cattle, 

 and it may be the cause of sickness, as intestinal diseases and typhoid 

 fevers, before reaching this stage. Let such wells be pumped so as to fill 

 them with new water every day, and these offensive qualities are princi- 

 pally removed. If bricks, stone, or cement pipe are used for lining wells, 

 and the water in them is frequently renewed by being largely di'awn from, 



03 Q- 



-tACUSrfT//vC^Ar^o^_Al Lt/l^/AL^ClAyS-^li 





,V£INS -^or, Sai-jD. .'^'^O -SfiA^VCL. 



Fig. 31.— Diagram indicatin;^ the itrubabk- rclationaliip of Bourcea of artesiau water at Grandin, N. Dak. 



it is generally wholesome and palatable, and is well adapted for nearly all 

 uses, excepting for washing with soap, as before mentioned, and for steam 

 boilers, in which the large amount of scale deposited from it in evaporation 

 is objectionable.^ 



SOURCES OF THE ARTESIAN WATERS. 



The narrow areas that may be sometimes occupied by the sand and 

 gravel layers in the drift sheet yielding artesian water, or the thin and in 

 some places entirely deficient condition of these layers, is illustrated by the 



'See two articles by Prof. N. H. Winchell. on "The water supply of the Red River Valley," 

 Geol. and Nat. Hist. Survey of Minnesota, Sixth Annual Report, for 1877, pp. U-42, and Ninth Annual 

 Eeport, for 1880, pp. 166-174. 



