NOTES OF ARTESIAN AND COMMON WELLS. 577 



proportion of bowlders and gravel than its lower part, which is very hard, and is 

 therefore commonly denominated "hardpan." The depth to the limestone varies from 

 30 to CO feet in the west part of the city, and increases to about 75 feet eastward. 



One of these wells, bored in the west edge of the city, close north of the Assini- 

 boiue and li miles west of the Osborne street bridge, went 32 feet in stratified clay 

 and till, and then 100 feet in limestone, mostly of light bufi" or cream color, obtaining 

 water of good quality at 132 feet, which rose to 5 feet below the surface. The bed- 

 rock is nearly like that which outcrops at Lower Fort Garry and East Selkirk. 



A general section of the superficial deposits at Winnipeg is noted by J. Iloyes 

 Panton as follows, from information supplied by Mr. Piper, known as having an 

 extensive experience in well boring throughout the city: 



1. Surface mold, 1 to 4 feet thick, dark color, and exceedingly fertile. 



2. "Yellow gumbo," 2 to 3 feet; a very sticky form of yellowish clay, which usually holds consid- 

 erable water. 



3. Dark gray clay, 30 to 50 feet thick, with bowlders scattered throughout, some of them 4 feet 

 in diameter and chiefly gneissoid, and no doubt derived from Laurentian rocks. 



4. Light-colored clay, 1 to 3 feet, containing many small stones. 



5. Hardpan, 2 to 10 feet, a very solid and compact form of clay. 



6. Sand, gravel, and bowlders, 5 to 25 feet. 



7. Angular fragments, 1 to 3 feet, usually limestone, and largely derived from the solid rock which 

 lies immediately below it. 



This loose material is far from being uniform, and varies so much in its arrangements that scarcely 

 any two borings show the same distribution. Sometimes there is little or no hardpan, while in other 

 parts it is several feet thick. However, as a usual thing, these seven forms of strata are passed through 

 in boring, and varying in thickness to the number of feet already mentioned. ' 



St. Boniface. — Wells in St. Boniface are nearly the same as in Winnipeg, on the 

 opposite side of the river. The deepest learned of is on the exhibition ground, 15G 

 feet deep, being stratified clay and till, 36 feet, its lowest 10 feet very hard and com- 

 pact; sand, 44 feet, to the bed-rock at 80 feet; then limestone, of light cream color or 

 nearly white, penetrated 76 feet and extending below. 



Niverville. — Thomas W. Craven, hotel: Well, 65 feet deep, in alluvium and till; 

 water rises to 15 feet below the surface. Other wells in this village have nearly the 

 same depth or less, none coming to the bed-rock; but it was reached by a well a third 

 of a mile east, at a depth of about 100 feet. 



Four miles south-southeast of Niverville, in the northeast quarter of section 5, in 

 this same township 7, range 4 east, Cornelius Freeseu's well, situated on the Niverville 

 beach, passed through alluvium and glacial drift, 65 feet, and shale, 30 feet, obtaining 

 an ample artesian flow of excellent water. 



In the southwest quarter of this section, a half mile from the foregoing, Adam 

 Freesen has a similar flowing well, 107 feet deep, which went 37 feet into the shale. 



' Report of the Department of Agriculture and Statistics, Manitoba, for 1882, p. 176. 

 MON XXV 37 



