296 University Geological Survey of Kansas. 
Mahaska Well, Washington County. 
This well is on the property of J. L. Summers, on the bank of 
a ravine, bordering the high prairie. The well is twenty feet 
deep, and is dug down to the solid rock. When this rock was 
reached it was drilled through with a hand drill, and the well 
filled rapidly to the depth of twelve feet. 
This is a sulfate water containing small quantities of carbon- 
ates of lime and magnesia. It is slightly astringent in taste, on 
account of the iron that is present. One liter, on evaporation, 
leaves 159.27 grains of mineral matter, so the water contains a 
considerable quantity of sulfates. When first drawn the water 
is clear, but soon becomes yellow and turbid from the precipita- 
tion of iron. On this account the use of the water for house- 
hold purposes has been abandoned, although it is still used for 
watering stock. 
Muscotah Artesian Wells, Atchison County.” 
BY E. B. KNERR. 
‘‘Along the base of the east bluff of the Grasshopper valley, 
about one and a half miles south of Muscotah, on the Central 
Branch Missouri Pacific railroad, there is a series of inter- 
esting low, marshy mounds. The mounded area on the farm 
of Mr. H. M. Rice is about one hundred rods long by fif- 
teen rods wide, and the mounds are from five to eight feet high. 
About a quarter of a mile further south, on S. H. Hubbard’s 
farm, is another mound, about fifteen yards wide, sixty yards 
long, and eight or ten feet high. Two miles further south, on 
James Miller’s place, there are similar mounds. A swamp is 
usually low ground, but here the swampy ground is the highest. 
‘‘Harly in September, 1900, Mr. Rice concluded thatif he were 
to sink a pipe near one of these mounds, he would get an arte- 
sian flow of water. He bored a test hole with a two-inch auger, 
and at a depth of thirty-four feet struck a flow of water so strong 
as to force up pebbles the size of a hickory-nut. A two-inch 
pipe was forced into the hole, and the water rose to overflow 
79. Trans. Kans. Acad. Sci., vol. XVII, pp. 53, 54. 
