DIFFERENT SOURCES OF MINE WATERS 503 



use in studying and discussing the circulation of underground waters. 

 The classification will then be : 



I. Meteoric group : 



(a) Eain, vadose or pluvial waters, coming down from above. 

 (h) Buried or connate waters, which will be very different, accord- 

 ing as they were originally marine or fresh. 



II. (Juvenile) or volcanic group : 



(a) Magmatic waters. This is in a sense connate in the magma, 

 but not so in the contact zone and country rock. 



■ i ' : • ■ ; I 1 I : ■ ' ■ '' 



OCCURRENCE OF CONNATE WATERS 



We must of course remember that the property of water is to mix, and 

 that we are sure to meet waters of mixed origin. 



If the whole upper zone were so searched and penetrated and rinsed by 

 rain water, as some of Van Hise and Schlichter's diagrams casually in- 

 spected have led some to infer, there w^ould be no chance of getting any- 

 thing but a mixed water or possibly a pluvial or rain water with mineral 

 additions leached in transit. But while Schlichter's lines of flow are pre- 

 sumably correct enough and it is unquestionably true that in any mass of 

 fluid any flow in at one point and out at the other disturbs the remotest 

 corner, yet the amount of flow and rate of change in siich remote corner 

 is very small. If it had been possible to show — say by the number of dots 

 per lineal inch — the relative proportions of flow along the lines of flow in 

 these diagrams, it would have given a useful idea of the real main drift of 

 water and the chances of the corners not getting scoured out by rain 

 water. A study of water analyses will show that rain water very fre- 

 quently does not make a clean job of it. Indeed, one is inclined to agree 

 with the State Geologist of Colorado,* who emphasizes a zone of stagna- 

 tion in which the rain or pluvial waters have had little to do. 



When beds are laid down beneath the sea there must be little circulation 

 while they are below water level. If then covered with impervious beds 

 by a transgression of the ocean, there will be no circulation until they are 

 raised so as to outcrop at different levels, when circulation will begin. But 

 in fine-grained rocks capillary action is strong, and even in more pervious 

 ones, if the water is salt, we can hardly expect, nor do we find, indications 

 of very active circulation. On the contrary, where there has been very 

 little erogenic or volcanic disturbance, there are signs of stagnation. Ac- 

 ciimulations in domes under impervious cover of oil or gas with salt water 

 beneath must he quite stagnant, and the water at the bottom of many 



* J. W. Finch : Proceedings of the Colorado Scientific Society, 1904, vol. 7, pp. 193-252, 

 cited by J. F. Kemp. 



