528 THE GLACIAL LAKE AGASSIZ. 



come from these distant sources is indicated by tlie artesian wells obtained 

 farther west in North and South Dakota, which also need to be somewhat 

 particularly described here, since they are intimately related with the saline 

 springs and flowing wells of the Red River Valley. 



Itdaiiouship to the artesian wells of Devils Lake and the James River 

 Vallei/. — 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 Devils 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 Cretaceous formation in the upper Missomi region, 

 artesian water has been found. Probably as many as 200 \\'ells have been 

 bored, then- depths ranging from 900 to 1,550 feet, except in the southern 

 part of the James and Vermillion valleys, where naany 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 5 or 6 inches in diameter, and their 

 strong pressure, conunonly trom 50 to 175 pounds per square inch at the 

 surface, makes them valuable not only for fire hych-ants luit also to furnish 

 power for manufacturing purposes. Several wells have been bored at 

 Aberdeen, and five years ago fifteen wells were in use in Yankton. The 

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

 and in numert)us places along the iniddle portion of the Janaes River Valley, 

 as Huron, Redfield, and Aberdeen, the pressure corresponds 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 Dakota 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 during the Tertiary era removed the upper 

 portion of these beds, leaving only the Fort Benton shales or a part of 

 that formation over the Dakota sandstone. 



At Devils Lake, where an artesian well was bored in 1889, about 6 

 feet above the depot, or 1,470 feet above the sea, the section was as follows: 



