Origin and Diffusion of the Herzberg Principle 
with Especial Reference to Hawaii 1 
Harold S. Palmer 2 
When it became known in Hawaii that 
successful artesian wells had been sunk in 
many parts of California, various people dis- 
cussed the question whether artesian water 
existed in Hawaii. Certain optimists brought 
a capable well driller from California in 1876, 
but were emphatically rebuffed when they 
sought financial help from the government. 
According to H. M. Whitney (1898), the de- 
cision lay with the Finance Minister, who 
refused money for a test well because he held 
that all "caverns” below sea level were filled 
with salt water, and that any rain water reach- 
ing the caverns became salt water at once. 
How wrong he was appeared just three years 
later when James Campbell, at his own ex- 
pense, had a good well drilled in Honouliuli. 
As more wells were drilled, it was learned 
that holes near the sea or near the axes of 
valleys were apt to be failures. We have no 
evidence as to how well the hydrologic con- 
ditions were understood. In 1882 Judge Mc- 
Cull y described the successes to that date. 
Appended to his article is some material by 
an unnamed writer, who thought correctly 
that the fresh water was prevented from escap- 
ing to the sea by impervious strata, which he 
called "very compact clay.” This, certainly, 
is a very important factor in the modern 
explanation of the artesian conditions in 
Honolulu. 
1 The Herzberg principle holds that in oceanic is- 
lands and along shores of larger land masses fresh water 
floats on and is underlain by sea water because of their 
differences in density. 
2 Professor Emeritus of Geology, University of Ha- 
waii. Manuscript received May 3, 1956. 
Schuyler and Allardt concluded in 1889 
that the Pearl Harbor Springs and the artesian 
wells drew from the same source of supply, 
as shown by the fact that water rose in the 
artesian wells only a little higher than the 
highest springs. They wrote, "The probabili- 
ties are that the island is surrounded by deep 
thick strata of impervious clay . . . , that these 
strata lap onto the land to the height the 
water rises in wells, . . . and that these strata 
prevent the escape of the waters into the sea 
beneath them.” They seem to be the first to 
point out the relation between the height of 
what we now call "cap rock,” and the artesian 
level. A diagrammatic cross section illustrates 
their views to some degree. Unfortunately 
their report was a private affair and was not 
widely circulated, one supposes, so that their 
understanding of the extensive "basal ground 
water body,” as we now call it, was not uti- 
lized by others. 
In 1875, Franklin C. Hill told how good 
water could be gotten by digging shallow 
wells in sand islands off the Gulf Coasts of 
Mississippi and western Florida. He explained 
the presence of fresh water by analogy to an 
"ash leach,” a vessel, such as a barrel, tight 
enough to hold wood ashes but with small 
openings at the bottom through which liquids 
could escape. Hot water poured in on top of 
the wood ashes leaches out potassium salts, 
sinks downward and out at the bottom. As 
more and more water is added it drives the 
previous lots of water downward with little 
mixing. Hill draws a parallel with water from 
rain driving salt water down to some depth 
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