ABTESIAN WELLS. 403 



extreme purity and its superiority unci- the water furnished by the Denver 

 Water Company from the Platte, and the interest created by its discovery 

 was very great. The question of its source was discussed sit length, mid it 

 was due largely to the emphatic and, as later proved, correcl assertion of Mr. 

 I torace Beach, the I Ihited States commissioner in charge of the < J-overnment 

 (veils on the plains, that tins water was artesian and not derived by seepage 

 from artificial lakes near by, that confidence was established in these wells 

 and boring begun extensively. To the enterprise of Messrs. Philip Zang, 

 Thomas < '•. Anderson, II. A. W. Tabor, and the owners of the Lion Brewery, 

 all of whom immediately sunk wells, is largel) due the first establishment 

 of the fact that Denver is underlain Ijy economically available bodies of 

 artesian water. 



Since that time nearly Inn wells have been drilled within and about 

 Denver, extending for a distance of l<> miles along the Platte River and 

 embracing a width of country of at least 5 miles on its either side. Denver 

 being about at the center of the tract. Besides these there arc a few others 

 in isolated positions over the field in general, depending for their flow upon 

 local conditions of stratigraphy. 



In the later history of the Denver artesian system the poinl of chief 

 interest and importance has been the decrease in yield, particularlj of 

 the wells within the city limits — the area of greatest demand upon the 

 subterranean supply. Of the many strong wells of earlier years, but six 

 to-day yield a flow at the surface, pumps being generally employed in 

 raising the water. A review of the evidence gathered in the examination 

 uf the wells in 1886 indicated that at thai time the water supply as a 

 whole had not shown signs of decrease either in the region of greatest 

 concentration of wells or in the outlying districts. Any decrease in the 

 vield of individual wells could then be traced to defects in the bore or 

 its packing, or to the local influence of holes more favorably located, an 

 interference wholly confined within the city limits. Between the years 

 1888 and 1890, however, a steady and general decrease in the water sup- 

 ply of the city wells took place, and in 1891 the water level stood several 

 feet beneath the surface. The wells in the country >till show no perceptible 

 decrease. 



