GEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SURVEY. 37 



water, for the reason that the sand clogs the strainer of the pump. 

 It is also diflficult to case or wall a bored or dug well in this ma- 

 terial, it being necessary to sink the wall or casing to the bottom 

 of the sand. Many wells are carried through this sand and a few 

 feet of the underlying blue clay to a gravel bed or in some instances 

 into underlying limestone. 



FLOWING WELLS (1). 



Palatine Flowing Well District. ■ — In the vicinity of Palatine, 

 in northern Cook County, there is a small district having a radius 

 of about two miles from the village of Palatine as a center, where 

 flowing wells are obtained. In 1887 there were eight of these wells 

 in the village of Palatine, and at least twenty-five in the town- 

 ship. The writer has obtained no later information concerning 

 this district. The depth of the wells ranges from 70 to 170 feet, 

 the majority of them being from 125 to 170 feet in depth. Occa- 

 sionally a well has struck two or more veins from which water 

 will flow, thougdi usually there is but one vein. The water rises 

 in the village of Palatine from the three strongest wells about ten 

 feet above the level of the track at the depot. These wells do not 

 obtain water from exactly the same depth, but are among the deep- 

 ,est wells in the village. The head is lower in the shallow wells, 

 water rising in some cases only about five feet above the level 

 of the railway station. It was not determined to what height water 

 rises in wells outside the village compared with those in the village, 

 since they are scattered widely and no levelings have been made 

 between the wells. The rate of discharge varies greatly even in the 

 village of Palatine. The strongest well, which is at the cheese 

 factory, has a discharge of sixty gallons per minute. The other 

 wells in the village flow but one to six gallons per minute, and 

 the wells at the farm houses outside the village seldom flow more 

 • than five gallons per minute. The water is slightly chalybeate in 

 every well wdiich was examined. The waters vary greatly in 

 hardness in the different wells. All the water, however, is so hard 

 that it is necessary to "break" it before using it for laundry pur- 

 poses. 



There are many deep wells in the vicinity of Palatine whic'h 

 do not flow, even when the surface level is lower than tliat at 

 the flowing wells. The water supply is apparently from veins 

 whose collecting areas vary in altitude, otherwise the water level 

 would be more uniform. 



in These flowing wells were first discussed by me in the 17th Annual Keport 

 of the U. S. Geological Survey. 



