52 
Colorado Experiment Station 
total solids than the shallower, but the increase in the brown water 
area is much more marked than in the white water area. In the latter 
area this increase is from about 5 grains to 15.9 grains per imperial 
gallon; in the former, the brown-water area, the first flow carries 
about 2\2 grains which increases to 108 grains per imperial gallon in 
the deepest flow examined. For the present, we may consider the 
source of the carbonate to be the country itself, i. e., we may consider 
it as existing throughout this whole section as ready formed sodic 
carbonate without any regard to the original source from which it was 
derived or the agencies contributing to its formation. I have pre¬ 
viously indicated my belief in its formation by the action of water on 
the sands consisting very predominately of grains of igneous rocks 
and possibly in a large measure to the evaporation of such water 
within this area due to a lack of drainage throughout a long pe¬ 
riod. It is, however, much more convenient for our present purpose 
to adopt the preceding statement—that it occurs, already formed, in 
the strata of this section of the valley. This agrees with the fact that 
if you start at Alamosa and go northward, the water increases both in 
alkalinity and the amount of total solids contained, until you get a 
little north of McGinty; from here to Hooper it remains about the 
same. It is understood that these statements are, in a sense, general 
in character, for, at the present time, it is practically impossible to 
obtain reliable information relative to the depth from which a well may 
be delivering water and general statements are the only ones that can 
be made, as the flows taken may not be the same. 
If we start at Center near the western rim of the artesian basin 
and sample the waters eastward to Hooper, we find a very similar se¬ 
ries of results—an increase in both the alkalinity and total solids. 
While the foregoing statements are, in a sense, general ones, they 
are based upon two series of samples taken, as suggested, from Ala¬ 
mosa northward and from Center eastward to Hooper. In a few in¬ 
stances we can ascertain the depth from which the water rises, but in 
the majority of cases we cannot get satisfactory information. An¬ 
other difficulty is that but few of the wells are so cased that we get the 
water from a definite flow. In the instances in which the depth of the 
well is known, I shall give it, in other cases I can only designate the 
wells as shallow or deep. 
