OCR Text |
Show QUALITY OF UNDERGROUND WATER. 35 6. Earth closets, with proper care, may be satisfactorily adopted, but the earth, after having been once used, should be placed upon the land, not stored within doors and dried to be again used, for in the process of drying there are emanations from it which are, perhaps, not less dangerous from the fact of their being imperceptible by the unaided senses or through chemical examination. With earth closets a plan similar to that in use at the Pittsfield Hospital « may well be used for the chamber slops, and the kitchen waste may be utilized ( with the chamber slops too, if desired) in the manner used by Mr. Field and Colonel Waring. * * * Less intricate methods are used in scattered dwellings, but with the effect of having the slop water absorbed by the ground and taken up by vegetation so far from the house as not to involve a nuisance or danger to health. 7. Where water supplies, water- closets, etc., are introduced, sewers should follow immediately in most kinds of soil. Cesspools should not be used, unless with extraordinary precautions; but with a few hundred feet square of lawn the irrigation system by agricultural drain pipes is to be recommended, whereby the filth is at once taken up by the roots of grass. In all cases, of course, with or without cesspools, there should be thorough ventilation of the system of house drainage, with disconnection from the main outlet drain by means of either a ventilating pipe or rain- water spout between the sewer trap and the house, and whose openings at the top should be only at points remote from windows and chimney tops. On the whole, a thoroughly satisfactory arrangement of this kind, if properly looked after, is in many respects to be preferred to connecting with public sewers. RECOVERY OF UNDERGROUND WATER. A crude estimate of. t h e amount of underground water in the valleys of Utah Lake and Jordan River might be made, based on an assumed thickness and porosity of the unconsolidated sediments, and the result would be many cubic miles, yet the figures would be valueless. The important fact is t h e amount of available water that can be recovered economically; but, unfortunately, this too, because of lack of detailed knowledge concerning the distribution and thickness of the beds of sand and gravel which constitute the reservoirs, can not be determined. Though definite figures are not available, the general fact is well known that the lowlands are amply supplied with underground water within easy reach of the surface and that on the highlands the underground supply is relatively small. Underground water becomes available for use both naturally and artificially. It reaches the surface again naturally in springs and by seepage into drainageways, and is commonly recovered artificially by means of wells, though occasionally tunnels and subsurface dams prove efficacious. Wells are - t h e main recourse in t h e area under consideration, and they can be conveniently grouped into two classes, flowing and nonflowing. The areas in which flowing wells are obtained in the valleys of Utah Lake and Jordan River are shown on Pis. V I I I and IX, and the list of wells, together with t h e descriptions of t h e different localities, gives detailed information concerning the occurrence of artesian water. The date when the first flowing well was put down has not been ascertained, but it appears t o have been about 1878. Since then many have been sunk, and the limits of the areas in which flows can be obtained have been determined with fair accuracy by experiment. The map shows that flowing wells exist only in the lower portions of the valley, the area of flows corresponding closely with that in which ground water lies within 10 feet of the surface. Higher u p on t h e benches the elevation is too great t o obtain flows. Locally, flowing wells may be obtained at a depth of less t h a n 50 feet, but generally they range between 100 and 400 feet, while the few that have been sunk to 1,000 feet and more encountered water under pressure in the successive beds of sand and gravel. As many as 25 distinct water horizons from which flows at the surface were obtained are reported in the Rudy well, sec. 6, T. 1 N., R. 1 W. The wells are usually 2 inches in diameter, though occasionally t h e shallower ones are only 1 inch, while the deeper ones are 4 and 6 inches. I n yield the wells vary considerably, according to location, depth, and size of pipe. The greatest flow measured was t h a t in the Harry Gammon well, sec. 7, T. 6- S., R. 2 E., which supplies about 266 gallons a minute from a 3- inch pipe. A number of wells flow less than 1 gallon a minute, though a common yield is between 10 and 60 gallons. The pressure is comparatively low, the highest measurements obtained being only 15J pounds per square a Cottage Hospitals: Ninth Ann. Rept. Mass. State Board of Health, pp. 83- 95. |