Dupont's artesian well, Louisville, Kentucky : Report, analysis, and medical properties of its water, with remarks upon the nature of artesian wells / by J. Lawrence Smith.

  • J. Lawrence Smith
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dupont's artesian well, Louisville, Kentucky : Report, analysis, and medical properties of its water, with remarks upon the nature of artesian wells / by J. Lawrence Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    greea higher than this, as ascertained by sinking a Walferdin's registering thermometer to the bottom, Temperature whicn indicated 82£° Fahr. Taking as correct data, at the bottom t]jat t]je po;nt 0f constant temperature below the sur- of the Well. r r coot? v face of Louisville is the same as at Paris, viz: 53 ianr., at ninety feet below the surface, we have an increase of 1° of temperature for every sixty-seven feet below that point. The increase in Paris is 1° for every sixty-one and two-tenths feet. The temperature of the water is sufficient for comfortable bathing during most of the year, a circumstance that will be of considerable impor- tance, if it ever be turned to the use of baths. The rea- son of the difference of 6° between the water at the bottom of the well and a£ the top is, that the iron pipe leading from the surface to the rock passes through a stratum of water sixty feet thick, having a temperature of 57° The Source of the Water. Source of the The question naturally arises, if the vein of water supplying this well has a connection with some distant source higher than the surface of Louisville, where is that source? From all that we have been able to learn of the geology of this country, taking Louisville as a center, the first rocks encountered corresponding to the sand rock (in which the water of the Artesian Well was struck) are in Mercer, Jessamine and Garrard counties, near Dix creek, to the east of Harrodsburg. The rocks there are said to be cavernous and water bear- ing. The elevation is about five hundred feet greater than Louisville, and about seventy-five miles in a straight line from the city. This being the most probable source of the water, from whence comes its mineral constituents? These are obtained from the rocks through which it percolates in its way from its source to the point below Louisville where it has been tapped, and where it will doubtless flow in undiminished quantity for centuries