Artesian Water for Minneapolis.— WinchelL 283 
imaginary than actual, since the bog, Hke all the surrounding 
country, is affected by the flooded stage of the season, and as 
the river itself rises and has a tendency to overflow, so the bog 
itself rises with the floods from other sources and tends to re- 
ject the overflow from the river and to confine it still within its 
own channel; this condition, furthermore, is comparable with 
the sewer channel only when the sewer is completely filled and 
its contents have a tendency to penetrate its openings; fifth, 
and lastly, no driller of deep wells would for a moment leave 
a well uncased in which there was a possibility of contamina- 
tion from surface waters or from sewers. Such casing is al- 
ways driven down, after putting a shoe upon the bottom of the 
tube, until it reaches some portion of the rock so firm that it 
cannot be driven further, or, until evqry possibility of surface 
contamination is surely shut off. 
On the north side of Bassett's creek, whether there be sewers 
or not in the St. Peter sandstone, the sandstone is so crowded 
with water under hydrostatic pressure, that water would be 
driven into the sewer, in case of any opening in the sewer, 
rather than into the sandstone from the sewer. 
Too Expensive. — About four years ago the writer delivered 
an address before the Six O'Clock Club, of this city, in which 
he set forth these facts and urged the use of artesian waters 
for the city. He did not touch upon the question of cost of the 
proposed scheme, but simply set forth the possibilities of 
ground water and mentioned that a few wells sunk for a test 
would not cost very much. What was his surprise in next 
morning's Tribune to find a very flaming account of the ex- 
pensive proposition which would involve an expenditure of 
$1,250,000.00, which plan had been submitted to the best civil 
engineers and to physicians in Minneapolis, who admit its prac- 
ticability and acknowledge its value "as a broad gauge road to 
public health." The reporter, who must have been a man of 
lively imagination, goes on to state that the plan as stated by 
professor Winchell involved the sinking of ninety wells in or- 
der to produce 30,000,000 gallons a day ; that the cost of sinking 
such wells would be, as stated, one million and a quarter of dol- 
lars; "but," the reporter continues, "the cost of $450,000.00 
would construct a filtration basin and plant against the cost 
proposed by the sinking of the deep wells ; that is, less than half 
