270 CONSERVATION OF GROUND WATER 



of concerning themselves with the details of water supply than 

 they have of fixing their cars or television sets in time of trou- 

 ble. An appreciation of the broader aspects of water resources 

 is important to them, however, particularly if their activities 

 are concerned with any processes that use significant quantities 

 of water. Some understanding of the possibilities and limita- 

 tions of regional resources of both surface water and ground 

 water can aid in the selection of a site for industrial plant or 

 irrigated farm and can encourage the recognition of water 

 supply as one of the basic factors in designing a plant or work- 

 ing out industrial techniques. 



Few textbooks deal comprehensively with ground water. 

 Educational institutions generally cover the subject only to 

 the extent of including a chapter on ground water in a course 

 on geologic processes, a short discussion of ground-water hy- 

 draulics in civil-engineering courses, or a statement of the 

 classification of water and a study of court decisions as part of 

 a course in law. Much of the public enlightenment now de- 

 pends on the writings of nontechnical men, and they betray 

 a general lack of understanding of the fundamental principles 

 of occurrence of water beneath the earth's surface. This lack 

 of understanding appears even in the writings of technical men 

 in related fields of scientific study, including experts on other 

 phases of the hydrologic cycle. 



Many writers have the impression that ground water re- 

 mains stagnant beneath the surface waiting for man to pump 

 it out, unless some neighbor drains it out by pumping from 

 his well. Actually the replenishable ground-water supplies are 

 characteristically in motion, and any water that has remained 

 in one place for a long period, such as connate water, is likely 

 to be too saline for use. The hydrologists themselves are per- 

 haps responsible for further confounding the nontechnical 

 writer, for in describing the hydrologic cycle they have used 

 oversimplified diagrams, which may have given rise to the com- 

 mon concept of a single huge "ground-water reservoir" ex- 

 tending across the Nation and susceptible to replenishment 

 from precipitation at any point. Scientific work to date has 



